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Comment

The federal government offers many landlords favorable loan terms to finance their businesses. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, work with banks to offer $150 billion to landlords in financing every year, without any strings attached.

At the same time, many renters are being priced out of their apartments. Landlords raise rents to an extent that they know will make their apartments unaffordable to many of their current tenants. Private equity firms are becoming landlords, increasing rents and engaging in practices to eliminate Black people from their properties.

Landlords employ tactics to trap renters so that they can be evicted. For example, if a renter allows a relative who has been convicted of a crime to visit their apartment, even if they have completed their sentence, that could be used to evict the renter. Facial surveillance recognition is being used in apartments to identify visitors. CCTVs are being placed in hallways and outside to catch renters that violate minor policies that are created just to enable landlords to evict renters.

At the same time, in many cases landlords allow apartments to deteriorate or even make renters responsible for fixing broken appliances.

the Federal Housing Finance Agency has the ability to curtail and eliminate these harmful practices. Please require that landlords who are given federal money agree to and comply with tenant protections, like capping rent hikes, banning evictions without good cause, and standardizing leases in over 12 million apartment units nationwide.

Thank you for considering this urgent manner as more and more Americans find themselves homeless.