Comment Detail

Comment

My name is Chris and until very recently, I have been a tenant for all of my adult life in places like Oakland, CA and Charleston, SC. I am a member of the Homes Guarantee Campaign.

While I was recently able to purchase my first home, living as a tenant through intense periods of gentrification in Oakland and Charleston was stressful and economic difficult. Rents often went up unexpectedly and independent of what I was earning at my job. Homelessness increased exponentionally in both cities I've recently lived in and that is a direct result of out of control rent increases. It is shameful that in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, anyone should involuntarily live on the streets, let alone the nearly 1 million people who currently do.

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.

The FHFA should also 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.

No one should have to live at the mercy of an unaccountable landlord, which we know the vast majority of residential landlords are these days. The federal government has a duty to protect one of the most basic of all human rights -- the right to shelter and adequate housing.

Sincerely,
Chris Tittle