Comment Detail

Comment

Thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback on the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Request for Information on tenant protections. My name is Samatha Anderson. I started Orange Child a movement to improve the psychological functioning, occupational, and career achievement outcomes of those who lived with and those who witness intimate partner violence birth through age five.
I am also an advocate in Washington State with Washington State Low Income Housing Alliance and Resident Action Project Lived Experience Ambassador and currently a resident of public housing with King County Housing Authority. I have been an advocate since 2016 for housing yet struggled with housing personally off and on for most of my adult life as well as my later teen years. I came from a good family, in fact both my parents worked for Boeing respectfully for a combined 65+ years. I am writing to share my experience and to urge FHFA to take bold action to create clear, strong, and enforceable renter protections for households living in rental properties with federally backed mortgages.

To help ensure greater housing stability, FHFA should create new renter protections for households living in properties with federally backed mortgages, including:
1. Source of income protections to prohibit landlords from discriminating against households receiving rental housing assistance such as Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers, or Supplemental Security Income (SSI), or local rental assistance, so that families can have greater choice about where to live.
2. “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. Rent gouging protections to stop landlords from dramatically and unreasonably raising rents.
4. Requirements to ensure housing is safe, decent, accessible, and healthy for renters and their families.
This has played out in communities all across our state in a almost co-dependency relationship of housing and fortune 500 companies. In the 1960’s Boeing employed over 150,000 people many in Washington State. Yet by 2015 they employed only 80,000. I should mention Amazon and Microsoft as well. Our region has thrived with the rise of big companies and felt the effects when those companies fall. Given the broad reach of FHFA’s work, any renter protections created by FHFA should cover a significant share of renters across the nation and put America on a pathway towards stronger protections for all renters.

I urge FHFA to take bold action to implement mandatory, standardized protections – paired with strong enforcement – for all households living in properties with federally backed mortgages, including larger developments and smaller properties. FHFA must continue to engage tenants and directly impacted people throughout its process of establishing and implementing renter protections.

Thank you for your time and opportunity to provide feedback as to how the Federal Housing Finance Agency could help support renter protections.

Sincerely,
Samatha Anderson
Orange Child