Comment Detail

Comment

The idea that the government subsidizes and supports landlords through loan programs without also requiring any sort of conditions on the part of the landlord to ensure fair and dignified treatment of the tenant is absurd. Basic tenant protections, including prevention of landlord price gouging, should be the condition of acceptance of any aid from the government in acquiring a mortgage. The power dynamic between tenant and landlord is currently entirely in favor of the landlord, who can at a whim increase rent (regardless of whether or not this reflects an increase in their costs), but the tenant has to make the brutal, often-dehumanizing choice between accepting unreasonable rents or uprooting their lives and trying elsewhere, where the landlord is equally likely to treat them solely as a source of profit. The FHFA has a real opportunity here to improve the balance of this relationship, and to recognize that the residential landlord is not in the business of managing and controlling property, they are in the business of managing and controlling people’s lives.