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My name is Julia Baker and I am a tenant living in Pittsburgh, PA. I am a member of the Homes Guarantee Campaign.

Every year rent goes up and wages don't. Rent is now 3x higher on average in Pittsburgh than it was when I moved here in 2011, and yet the minimum wage hasn't moved a penny. The only way I could ever afford to live here was to have roommates. Even so, now I can't afford to live in the neighborhood I call home. The job market in the city is awful. I have a Master's degree and still can't make more than $12/hour. Even that is almost double the minimum wage so how can anyone working at that level afford to live? This situation is dire and incredibly unethical. How can rent go up when wages don't? It makes absolutely no sense. The entire housing system is designed to exploit the people who struggle the most. I'm 34 years old with no hope of owning a home in my lifetime. The madness has to end.

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,
Julia Baker