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My name is Cody Boston and I am a tenant living in Kansas City, Missouri. I am a member of the Homes Guarantee Campaign.

I’ve lived in KC for 5 years and have been blessed to work in communities all across the city who are dedicated to making their this city a place where everyone can afford to live in safe homes. That has not been the case in Kansas City. Tenants are routinely priced out of their homes and put up with unsafe living conditions with mold and insects. I personally was stuck in a home that had water pouring out of the kitchen ceiling and a family of raccoons living in the walls with no action from our landlord for months on end. I’m not the only one who has had to live in these conditions.

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,
Cody