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Comment

My name is Lucid Thomas and I am a tenant living in St Paul, Minnesota. I am a member of the Homes Guarantee Campaign.

I actually want to share with you my positive experience of renting. I have been able to live in the same place for the past two years because our landlord only raised the rent once in that time. We currently have a positive relationship and it does so much for my own peace of mind. I feel comfortable becoming involved in my community more than anywhere I have ever lived before and I owe so much of it to my secure housing situation. Everyone living in this country deserves that opportunity and passing these tenant protections is one way to guarantee that for more people.

The rent is too damn high. The Federal Housing Finance Agency should protect tenants by limiting annual rent hikes to 1.5 times the Consumer Price Index or 3%, whichever is lower, in properties with federally backed mortgages. These limits should be applied universally as a requirement to all federally backed mortgage programs.

In addition to limits on rent hikes, the FHFA should prohibit evictions without good cause, ban source of income discrimination, enforce and expand existing protections against discrimination, require safe and accessible housing conditions, create a landlord registry, require fair and standardized leases, ensure tenants have the right to organize, and create an Office of Tenant Protections to enforce these rights in all properties with federally backed mortgages.

Sincerely,
Lucid