Comment Detail

Comment

This comment (and attached article) is submitted in response to Question A-7 of the RFI on Tenant Protections on behalf of myself (Professor Kellen Zale, University of Houston Law Center) and my co-author (Professor Sarah Schindler, University of Denver Sturm College of Law). The comments expressed are solely our own and do not express the views or opinions of our employers.

Our recent article (attached), "The Anti-Tenancy Doctrine" (published in University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 2023) documents how the U.S. legal system systematically accords tenants a second-class status across myriad areas of law. The article identifies these disparities across numerous areas of law and shows how the disparate treatment of tenants and homeowners has perpetuated the wealth gap, worsened the affordable housing crisis, and subsidized homeownership by shifting costs to renters. Further, these disparities have had grave consequences for people of color: the majority of Black and Latinx households—who have been impacted by a long history of racist structural barriers to homeownership—are renters.

While anti-tenancy pervades numerous areas of law (some beyond the scope of the FHFA's authority), we submit this article to your agency as evidence of the need for systemic legal reforms to better protect tenants. We are also signatories to the letter submitted to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) on behalf of dozens of academic researchers advocating that the agency "should use its influence over the multifamily housing market to keep people housed and foster an economy that works for everyone. We urge the federal government to pursue bold tenant protections and rent regulations for the over 12 million renters living in properties with federally-backed mortgages," and we urge the agency to enact the recommended reforms articulated in that letter as an important step in addressing the broader harms caused by the anti-tenancy doctrine.