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Comment

One of the results of lack of tenant protections in our dwindling rental housing stock is homelessness. The cost of housing is out of reach for many Americans. Many face homelessness or the existential choices between paying their rent of feeding their children or keeping the electricity on. Meanwhile, landlords are being given $150 billion in financing every year - no strings attached. Thus taxpayer money is being used to drive people out of their homes and onto the streets. The response is build more housing. As that money trickles down to the states/cities, the real estate developers help create programs that enrich themselves while giving cover by offering "affordable housing" within their plans - housing that is basically unaffordable to most. Meanwhile, the luxury housing market grows, as developers take advantage of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac programs where they can and getting private loans at preferred rates where applicable, even though much of the housing in the market is still unsold or unoccupied. At some point, there will be a bust in the real estate market, and who will be left holding the bag? And then the public is told it was unavoidable, no one saw it coming, etc. and taxpayers once again are called upon to bailout private industry whose greed has no bounds.

If real estate developers/landlords are to be offered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans, they must come with conditions that are enforced - conditions that protect tenants from being driven from their homes whether by price gouging or mismanagement or neglect of the property.