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Comment

Hello,

My name is Dan, and I am writing to strongly encourage the Federal Housing Finance Agency to take steps to condition government-backed loans on the adoption of meaningful tenant protections. I live in Lexington, KY, where, like cities and towns all over the country, the cost of rent has been rising for years, and more families than ever are at the mercy of predatory landlords who amass wealth by taking advantage of our vulnerability in the face of high housing costs and low supply.

The FHFA should use their regulatory power to enact the commonsense protection for tenants living in properties financed with government-backed loans:

- Rent regulations: Protect tenants from and limit egregious rent hikes.

- Good cause eviction: Prohibit evictions without good cause, ensuring every tenant has the right to a lease renewal. Good cause is defined as serious and repeated lease violations provable in a court of law.

- Ban source of income discrimination: Prohibit landlords from discriminating against tenants based on their source of income including federal housing assistance (i.e., vouchers).

- Freedom from discrimination: Enforce existing laws that prohibit landlords from denying a tenant rental housing based on race, physical or mental ability, and family make-up, and expand protections to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender expression or identity, immigration status, conviction and/or arrest history, bankruptcy history, eviction history, or credit score.

- Safe, quality, accessible housing standards: Require all landlords to keep their properties in good condition, and to ensure homes are accessible for people with disabilities. No renter should have to live in an inaccessible home or in housing conditions that put their health and safety at risk.

- Landlord registry: Tenants should have access to information about their landlord including their name and phone number.

- Tenant right to organize: Tenants have the right to form tenants’ unions or resident councils free from fear of retaliation from the landlord or managing agent. Ownership and management representatives must not interfere with the creation or actions of tenant organizations.

- Fair leases: Landlords must use standardized and clearly defined leases free of abusive terms.

- Office of Tenant Protections: A team charged with protecting tenants and enforcing their rights in properties with federally backed mortgages.

I urge the FHFA to continue to engage with and follow the leadership of tenants and people directly impacted by the rental market, to make racial and social equity an *explicit* goal of all regulations (since vulnerable minorities are disproportionately subject to the most predatory practices), to make tenants’ protections mandatory requirements (not incentivized or adopted on a voluntary basis). Moreover, tenant protection need to have teeth! Landlords who violate FHFA’s tenant protections should be found to be in technical default and should not be eligible for future loans.
The time for strong federal protections for tenants is now. No one should be able to use our basic human need for shelter to take advantage of us. Our government certainly should not fund or finance enterprises using exploitative practices as part of their business model.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Dan
Lexington, KY