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  • Comment Detail

  • Date: 07/02/23
    First Name: Maya
    Last Name: Ghanem
    Email: mg429@duke.edu
    Organization Type: other
    Organization: Maya Ghanem

  • Comment

    My name is Maya, and I am a tenant living in Durham, North Carolina. I am a member of the Homes Guarantee Campaign.

    I have been a renter in Durham for a year now. After my 11-month lease finished, the rent for a new contract increased by 200 dollars per month. I had to move to a new location and could not live there any longer. The prices in Durham have been rising and pushing people farther and farther away. As a Duke student, I would like to live closer to my university, but I cannot afford to do so anymore.

    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.

    Sincerely,
    Maya