NLIHC, the Revolving Door Project, and the People’s Action Homes Guarantee Campaign recently took action to follow up on the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) “Request for Input on Tenant Protections for Enterprise-backed Multifamily Properties” (RFI). NLIHC and the Revolving Door Project sent a letter on November 13 to FHFA Director Sandra Thompson presenting conclusions from an analysis of the more than 3,500 publicly available comments and urging Director Thompson to make public an additional 3,500 comments submitted confidentially, as well as those submitted after the deadline. The letter also urged Director Thompson to act swiftly to enact clear, strong, and enforceable renter protections for households living in properties with federally backed mortgages. Additionally, NLIHC, the Revolving Door Project, and the People’s Action Homes Guarantee Campaign sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request to the FHFA focused on the non-public comments submitted to the agency in response to the RFI.
The letter, sent by NLIHC and the Revolving Door Project, included NLIHC’s preliminary analysis of the more than 3,500 public comments submitted in response to the FHFA’s RFI. NLIHC staff conducted an internal analysis by reading every comment submitted and categorizing key information about the content of the comment and the commenter. NLIHC’s analysis shows that of the 3,522 comments submitted by mid-August, 69% were submitted in support of tenant protections. The analysis noted that many of these pro-tenant comments were from individual tenants, often associated with tenant unions like Kansas City Tenants Union, People’s Action/Homes Guarantee campaign, Neighbor 2 Neighbor, Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, and Kentucky Tenants. Many national housing organizations, along with multi-sector groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), climate change researchers, environmental justice organizations, reproductive health groups, and racial justice organizers, stood up for tenants’ rights. Elected officials at the city, county, state, and national level urged FHFA to act in support of tenant protections, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, senators led by Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Chair Sherrod Brown (D-OH), House Financial Services Committee members led by Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-CA), and Representative Jamaal Bowman (D-NY). The analysis also noted petitions in support of tenants, including one with 3,750 signatures from More Perfect Union and another from Move On with 677 signatures.
The letter expressed concern, however, about FHFA’s process for collecting confidential comments. FHFA received more than 3,500 additional comments that were submitted confidentially, and advocates are concerned that this disproportionate number (roughly half of comments) unfairly favors landlords, despite the agency’s stated commitment to “a transparent process that includes broad participation from diverse voices,” as stated in the RFI. “While tenants and individuals are justly protected in their confidentiality, we are concerned about the percentage of total comments submitted anonymously,” the organizations state. They note concern that “nearly half of the comments received were submitted anonymously. Housing advocates are left to wonder what evidence could be included in these comments to sway FHFA in secret, and if it is based on scientifically sound and racially just evidence.”
The letter accompanies a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request, also submitted November 13, which requests all non-public comments (also referred to as “confidential comments”) submitted to the FHFA via the agency’s email address listed in the RFI. The Request notes that responding documents will redact confidential or proprietary information and finds points of commonality between the FHFA FOIA office and tenant advocates. The Request states that “in the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act’s fundamental purpose to promote a transparent government, as well as the FHFA’s specific goal to learn different stakeholder’s opinions on tenant protections, we expect that the FHFA FOIA Office will maintain the overall integrity of the responding documents… The public deserves to understand the information that the FHFA is accounting for when making policy.” NLIHC will continue to engage with the FHFA as the agency makes public the analysis of comments later this year and will continue to push for strong, enforceable tenant protections.
Read the letter at: https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/FHFA-FOIA-Request-for-Non-Public-Comments-V2.pdf
Read the FOIA Request at: https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/FHFA-FOIA-Request-for-Non-Public-Comments-V2.pdf