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My name is Cayla and I am a tenant living in Los Angeles, CA. I am a member of the Homes Guarantee Campaign.

Los Angeles, like other cities, is experiencing a housing affordability crisis. Every single day, without exception, no matter the weather, I encounter a person or people who have spent the night unhoused. Or slightly less visible: the folks sleeping in their cars outside my gym who keep a gym membership to shower and use the restroom before they go to work. Or the one-bedroom rental units that cost $3,000 a month and sit empty for months or years at a time, while people sleep on the sidewalk directly outside that same building. It's not just Los Angeles: in 2023, there is not a single state where a worker employed full-time at the federal minimum wage can afford a modest two-bedroom apartment.

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,
Cayla