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  • Comment Detail

  • Date: 07/15/23
    First Name: Murphy
    Last Name: Maiden
    Email: englishwithmurph@gmail.com
    Organization Type: N/A
    Organization: KC Tenants

  • Comment

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

    I am a young person with a full-time job with insurance for the first time in my life. I was lucky to find a studio apartment that cost below $700/month in rent before any utilities. I am afraid that my landlord will raise rent to be higher than I can afford. I am a case manager in a homeless shelter - I don’t want to become one of my clients. And of course landlords are going to raise the rent because they care about profit.

    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,

    Murphy