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Every property I rented in Bozeman since 2015 has been prohibitively expensive and not maintained properly. Every experience I have had with a property management company has been predatory and borderline extortion. The only way I have been able to afford living in Bozeman as long as I have was to work for months to find individual, private landlords who are not evil people and don't frequently violate our lease.

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.