Comment Detail

Comment

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

I live in an apartment that took out federally subsidized funds to the tune of ~$9,000,000, and yet we have seen no improvements on the property. Instead, we have seen rent increases, evictions, displacement, neglect, and outright abuse from the corporation that owns our homes. The *only* reason that this can even occur in our society is because the federal government regularly subsidizes the gentrification of its most affordable residential areas with taxpayer money. We are paying for our own displacement, and this is something that I refuse to do. These corporations need to be held accountable. The United States should be a government for the PEOPLE, not the profits.

In order to ensure that we continue to live in a developed, civilized, and habitable country, 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,