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My name is Chris and I am a tenant living in Louisville, Ky and am a member of the Homes Guarantee Campaign.
The rent is too damn high. FHFA should protect tenants. In early 2020, I and my partner at the time moved into the Woods & Hurstbourne apartments in the 40206 zip code, near the end of our lease we were suddenly told that a developer purchased the property and would not be renewing any of our leases. We had to rush, during the early days of the pandemic, to find a new apartment. We have recently found out that the property was purchased with a Freddie Mac-backed loan. As we were moving out, the new owners were putting up ‘now leasing’ signs and, when we asked if we could renew with them, we were told that we could not because they wanted to renovate the (already very new) apartments. We found out that they raised the rent over 20% when the new owners purchased the apartments and the ‘renovations’ we were told about were just putting a ceiling fan in the bedroom and putting a frame around the bathroom windows. The property manager at the time was bragging to tenants that he was given a ‘fat check’ to leave the property at well. After leaving, we moved into the Hurstbourne Grande apartments in the 40222 zip code. We had no other options at the time and, when looking at the apartment, there were panels of drywall falling off of the wall, windows that were damaged and unable to open, missing outlet covers, and dips in the floor, especially the bathroom. We submitted work orders and one person in the front office seemed upset that the apartment was in such bad shape so she helped us, but they still did not find the issues. After 3 months of almost no fixes, we called code enforcement and they found MANY violations that you can find easily online, and they waited until the very last day they had to repair the last of the issues. I also found out that, on multiple occasions, they came into my apartment with no notice, including once when I was asleep where they came into my room and worked on the attached bathroom without any prior notice. Then, I noticed a dip in the smaller bathroom near the toilet and reported it and they said nothing was wrong. I decided to get a lawyer to draft a letter to them and they pulled up the toilet and floor to find that the entire subfloor was rotting out and was about to fall through. After this, we noticed the hallway was giving when we walked down the hall and we decided to leave the apartment because we did not feel safe at that point, so I moved in with my mother. I recently found out that Hurstbourne Grande ALSO has a Freddie Mac mortgage. How are these companies able to raise rents, kick people out, and charge obscene amounts of money for apartments in such bad shape when they were purchased with government assistance? That is NOT right and the FHFA needs to do something NOW. Rents have risen over 20% in the last few years alone and it is near impossible to keep up.

Limit annual rent hikes to 1.5 times the Consumer Price Index or 3%, whichever is lower, in properties with federally backed mortgages. Limits should be a universal requirement for ALL federally-backed mortgage programs. The FHFA needs to 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,
Christopher Nunn