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My name is Elizabeth and I am a tenant in Louisville, Kentucky. I am a member of the Homes Guarantee Campaign and I am a leader with the Louisville Tenants Union

I have struggled with housing insecurity my entire adult life. Although I was lucky to have employment through the first year of the COVID pandemic, in December of 2020, I was forced to move in with an abusive boyfriend because I was not able to afford to rent an apartment alone. When the abuse escalated, I moved out and became homeless, couch surfing with friends in Tennessee. Despite having a full time job in Louisville, I could not rent an apartment because I did not meet arbitrary income requirements.

Over a year later, I took a new job and was finally able to leave my friend's apartment and move back home to Louisville. I live with severe anxiety knowing that my landlord could raise my rent at any time. Despite being in this apartment for over six months, I haven't fully unpacked, still worried that the stability I've found could be taken away with little to no notice.

I want the Federal Housing Finance Agency to protect tenants like me all over the United States. I am urging you today to limit annual rent hikes to less than 3% in properties that have federally backed mortgages. Furthermore, I want you to prohibit evictions without cause, I want you to ban source of income discrimination, improve transparency by creating a landlord registry, and put teeth behind existing tenant protections.

As part of my work with LTU, I spoke with a tenant who said that when the power to the complex went out after a recent storm, LG&E, the local electric company, told his landlord how much it would cost to fix. Because the landlord "thought he could fix it cheaper," he chose to leave his tenants without electricity in a hot Kentucky summer. This is immoral and unethical. FHFA protects landlords' financial interests; you MUST protect tenants' interests as well.