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Comment

My name is Gugssa Godana. I am a tenant living in Alexandria, Virginia and I am a member of African Communities Together.

In August 2020, the CIM Group bought Southern Towers using financial backing from Freddie Mac and has used that funding to displace working class families like my own. Southern Towers used to be a haven for working class and immigrant families. But CIM has decided to put profit over lives and now my family and my neighbors are constantly in fear of becoming homeless or being displaced if CIM isn’t stopped.

Since purchasing the property, CIM has given tenants 5-day eviction notices, has hiked up rents to unaffordable amounts, is unfairly forcing tenants into month-to-month leases, and has failed to fix the prevalent mold and maintenance issues that we are forced to live in.

We are hardworking families who deserve to live affordably and with dignity and respect. 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,
Gugssa