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  • Comment Detail

  • Date: 07/26/23
    First Name: Brandy
    Last Name: Barber
    Email: brandylbarber@gmail.com
    Organization Type: fannie mae
    Organization: Homes Guarantee Campaign

  • Comment

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

    My husband and I live in a rent controlled apartment. The building is maintained at the bare minimum, so much so that our landlord has multiple violations that he is being sent to the local housing authority in our city as I write to you. We make $56,000 a year before taxes. Our rent is $1,680 a year, and prior to the COVID rent increase freeze in our city, was raised yearly by 4% to adjust for 'cost of living'. As I mentioned, there are NO upgrades or maintenance of any kind on a yearly or even semi annual basis, yet we're forced to pay more. Our salaries haven't been increased yearly due to the supposed cost of living. How is this fair? How are landlords given special arrangements, but working class people like my partner and I are not offered any?

    There's clearly a reason that the saying "The rent is too damn high" is more true than ever before. The Federal Housing Finance Agency should protect gard working tenants like us by limiting annual rent hikes to 1.5 times the Consumer Price Index or 3%, whichever is lower, in properties with federally backed mortgages(of which mine is). 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.

    This country treats people like me with contempt for wanting fairly priced housing. Please change that narrative, and protect me -- not landlords and corporations that profit from property ownership.

    Sincerely,
    Brandy Woolfolk