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Comment

My name is Genna and I am a tenant living in Georgia. I am a member of the Homes Guarantee Campaign.

Our rent was hiked at our last apartment and we started a 4 month long search to find new housing. Many of the rentals we visited had one price advertised, but then initiated a bidding war to see which tenant would pay the most rent. Our previous rental indicated one price that did not include all the additional fees implemented by the property. These are predatory practices that need to be stopped immediately. There are far too few protections for tenants and if we ever need to defend ourselves in court, most lawyers only defend landlords. Consumers are continually being let down in a backwards system that has no regard for our lives as individuals.

Rent is too 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,
Genna