Comment Detail

Comment

My name is Fatoumata and I am a tenant living in New York City, New York.

I and many people I know are forced to move every year due to a high rent increase at every lease renewal. My rent has been hiked by $400 in a single year forcing me to move. High rent increases limit our disposable income and has resulted in more than 70% of my income going towards rent every month, leaving no money left for necessities like food, transportation, and health, and absolutely no chance when it comes to emergencies and even resulting in back rent and impacting my credit. Moving poses an additional struggle as the cost to move alone when you have little to no disposable income is near impossible without acquiring massive debt. Finding and affordable place in itself has become extremely difficult especially in New York and it is pushing people out of their homes, into more cramped and unsafe living situations, and out of the state.

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,
Fatoumata