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My name is Spencer Reed and I'm currently a tenant in New York City. The rent in New York is famously high - but I only live here currently because the rent in my home state of Vermont is almost as high! My rent eats a huge proportion of my income every month - so much so that I don't know how I'll ever save up enough to afford a home of my own. Rents are rising across the country at an unsustainable rate. We need to get serious about a massive investment in building affordable public housing. At the same time, 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.

Sincerely,
Spencer Reed
[KCT / KYT / N2N]