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My name is Eleanor and I am a tenant living in San Francisco, California. I support the Homes Guarantee Campaign.

I live in a one-bedroom apartment with a garage, storage, and access to a backyard. I was just informed that my landlord is selling the building. Due to the size of our building (4 units) and gaps and loop holes in local and state regulations, it's very likely that a developer will purchase this building and then condo-ize the units. If that happens, me and the other long-term tenants in the building will be evicted. And due to rising rents in the bay area is is practically impossible that any of us will be able to find a comparable apartment, price wise. We will have to move into a tiny studio or leave our homes and our city. It's happened to others on our block, and across our city. Finding out that your home is going on the market is just about the worst news you can get here. And we as tenants are absolutely powerless to do anything about it. The worst part is that once we are evicted, the developer will very likely apply for subsidies to build accessory dwelling units or demolish and rebuild the building entirely, and they will probably be granted due to the affordability crisis that will push me out of the city. Developers know this and pray on tenants like me and my neighbors in the building (two of whom are seniors). They rely on the "housing crisis" for access on funding and perpetuate it by continuing to evict long term tenants and raising rents ore removing units from the rental market all together.

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,
Eleanor