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My name is Natalie Beckman and I am a tenant living in Louisville, Kentucky. I am a member of the Homes Guarantee Campaign.

I have just become a tenant this month-July 2023-but I have been actively looking for affordable housing since I moved back home over a year and a half ago (December 2021). It should not have taken me this long to find an affordable place to live that is “worth” relinquishing half my paycheck for. I was lucky that I was able to live with family until I found something, but many people do not have family nearby or stable homes to rely on in a housing crisis. It has taken a year and a half for me to find an apartment that was affordable for my budget as a small business owner in the food service industry. None of the apartments I looked at were worth the amount of hours I would have to work in order to afford it- even as I make more than the minimum wage- especially if my small business were to struggle. I was finally able to find a reasonable and affordable apartment by finding someone who needed a roommate. I am able to do that now as a 23 year old with no kids but not everyone can nor should they have to.

I am worried about how I am going to save for the future while such a large portion of my income must go to rent because 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.

Based on the experiences of every person I have known that has rented an apartment, I dread having to deal with negligent landlords and predatory rental companies. To mitigate the exploitation of tenants, 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. These changes would make me feel safe in my home. Without them, the majority of us do not have housing security.

Sincerely,
Natalie Beckman.