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I strongly support compelling landlords who accept federal money or loans to abide by standards that reduce homelessness by regulating the frequency and magnitude of rent hikes and that obligate them

When I was young, I worked at the public window of the office of rent control in the city of Queens handing forms to tenants who had complaints about their housing. I can tell you from my personal experience that many renters were managing for extended periods without heat or with crumbling paint or discolored water.

I have friends who rent apartments and I hear how long it takes for landlords to make repairs. It took months for a friend living in apartment whose roof leaked into her unit, to have the water damage repaired, meanwhile she was exposed to whatever was growing on the wet ceiling.

Landlords have recently invested in surveillance technology and use CCTV cameras to monitor the activity of their tenants. Tenants are evicted based on rules that are unreasonable that have been consciously created to allow landlords greater flexibility in evicting renters. This is often because when an apartment is vacated the rent is raised or the unit is converted to a condominium and sold for a nice profit.

For all of the above reasons I fully support tenant protections like limiting rent hikes, banning evictions without good cause, and standardizing leases in over 12 million apartment units nationwide.

Thank you,

Julie Bernstein