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My name is Jesse and I am a tenant living in Bozeman Montana I am a member of Bozeman Tenants United and the Homes Guarantee Campaign.
My Grandma is on fixed income and has medical bills rent continue to go up. Since moving in my rent has gone in 50% and that is in low income housing. We have no where to go for help. We call all these resources that are supposed to be available and are turned away. It feels like we are de-prioritized because we are low income. There needs to be a buffer for when you start making more income to not be displaced from my apartment. Maybe 6 months to come up with a plan to relocate if you no longer qualify to live here. Many of my neighbors are single moms who never have a chance to get back on their feet. There is a dumpster outside our door that has been full for 3 weeks. That has to be a health violation. Our apartment gets a discount for being smoke free but my neighbor who lives next to me is a chain smoker. We have someone with Asthma in our house. I have lived here 4 years. I have never been late on rent but have been served several eviction notices. We did not have hot water for 4 weeks. Nothing got done until we threatened to get a lawyer. I'm expected to be a good member of this apartment and play by the rules but our landlord is not playing by the rules. My grandma in a wheelchair had her concrete removed in front of our apartment trapping her inside. They get away with this stuff. What am I paying for at this point.

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,
Jesse