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My name is Natasha and I am a tenant living in Las Vegas, NV.  I am a member of the Homes Guarantee Campaign.

I was born and raised here, and I am raising a child with my partner. My partner has a very decent job, and we are still unable to afford to rent for even a studio apartment in Vegas for a family of 3. We like many others we know have been forced to put rent on credit cards and dig ourselves further into debt just to survive. Watching homes being bought and used as rentals with extraordinarily expensive rent.

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,

Natasha