Comment Detail

Comment

The Honorable Sandra Thompson
Federal Housing Finance Agency
Washington, D.C.
Director Thompson,

Empower Missouri's Affordable Housing coalition is a multi-sector team of dedicated advocates who understand the importance of stable housing on health, community, safety, and more. We support regional housing work as appropriate and expand that energy to the state and federal level, building momentum to address the housing shortage crisis at an appropriate level. We are driven to make sure every person in our state has access to safe and affordable housing. Our coalition focuses on those who are most vulnerable, especially those who earn less than 50% of their AMI (Area Median Income) or who rent.

We are writing to urge FHFA to take action in creating clear, strong, and enforceable renter protections for households living in rental properties that are backed with federal mortgages. Given the broad reach of FHFA’s work, any renter protections created by FHFA should cover a significant share of renters across the our country and put America on a pathway towards stronger protections for all renters.

The FHFA should create new protections in place for tenants living properties with federally backed mortgages to include:
1. Enacting source of income protections to protect households that rely on Section 8 HCV's, SSI , or local rental assistance, so that families can have greater choice about where to live.
2. Enacting “Just cause” eviction standards, which limit the causes for which a landlord can evict a tenant or
refuse to renew a tenant’s lease when the tenant is not at fault or in violation of any law.
3. Enacting rent gouging protections to stop landlords from suddenly and unreasonably raising rents.
4. Requirements to ensure housing is safe, decent, accessible, and healthy for renters and their families.

Missouri currently has no statewide Source of income protections. Families can wind up waiting months or years trying to secure housing that fits their needs, often never getting to utilize the funding that is made available through the voucher program. Investments in HCV's will become more fully realized with the enforcement mechanisms that come with source of income protections. These protections should apply to all properties that are federally backed.

We need the FHFA to take action to implement the above mentioned policies that families in our state, and in every state are able to secure safe, accessible, truly affordable housing.

Sincerely,
Vee Sanchez
Empower Missouri