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  • Comment Detail

  • Date: 06/21/23
    First Name: Faith
    Last Name: Plank
    Email: Plankannfaith@gmail.com
    Organization Type: N/A
    Organization: Ky Tenants

  • Comment

    My name is Faith and I’m a renter in Kentucky. My family and I were evicted from our trailer park so that a developer could build a shopping center during the height of the pandemic. At the time I was 17 working 35 hours a week to help pay the rent in my families much more expensive apartment. Stable housing is an essential part of driving communities, economic security, and a healthy economy. We cannot say our economy is strong when millions of people are unhoused or one financial emergency away from losing their homes.

    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.
    In addition to limits on rent hikes, the FHFA should 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.