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  • Comment Detail

  • Date: 07/31/23
    First Name: Isabella
    Last Name: Gallo
    Email: bgallo615@gmail.com
    Organization Type: other
    Organization: Homes Guarantee Campaign

  • Comment

    My name is Isabella and I am a tenant living in Astoria, New York. I am a member of the Homes Guarantee Campaign.

    I currently live in a rent stabilized apartment. The only way I was able to rent an apartment in New York City was by finding a place with stabilized rent so that, as a student, I could trust that I'd be able to afford my apartment all through school. However, finding a rent stabilized apartment was incredibly difficult and the recent hikes in increases allowed to rent stabilized apartments by the RGB make me wonder if I will be able to stay here or need to find a different apartment when my lease is up for renewal again. If even rent stabilized apartments don't create enough affordability or stability for tenants, it can be easily understood that market rate apartments - with rents that can be raise with few, if any, guidelines create deeply inhospitable conditions for city residents.

    The rent is too damn high - Landlords are raising rents at the highest rates in over 40 years and in 2023, there is not a single state where a worker employed full-time at the federal minimum wage can afford a modest two-bedroom apartment. 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.

    Median rents in the U.S. have risen nearly 20% in the last two years alone and nationally, median rent has surpassed $2,000 for the first time ever. Due to this, 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 in addition to prohibiting rent hikes.

    Sincerely,
    Bella