Last Friday, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced a set of required tenant protections for multifamily properties financed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises). While the FHFA’s efforts to incorporate some tenant protections into a standard component of Enterprise multifamily financing are meaningful first steps, several important protections were not included in the mandate. We must also remember that many renters, including those supported by National CAPACD’s member organizations, live outside of GSE (government-sponsored enterprises)-backed housing and will not benefit from these protections.

We are sharing a series of briefs today that illustrate the rental crisis we are facing and the need for further action to protect renters. The briefs are a culmination of interviews with staff from eighteen CBOS from across the country and disaggregated national data and focus on the needs and experiences of Asian American renters in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, outlining policy recommendations that respond to these experiences. Like many other low-income communities, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AA and NHPI) renters have been significantly impacted by the cumulative impacts of the growing national housing crisis. Yet, national think tanks and researchers often fail to capture data that understand and meaningfully include the full diversity of our AA and NHPI communities. Instead of disaggregating data on AAs and NHPIs (or simply acknowledging the limitations of aggregated data on AAs and NHPIs), the default by many of these institutions is to ignore our communities altogether.

To meaningfully address our country’s housing crisis with equity in mind, we must take the housing needs of AA and NHPI communities into account. These four briefs uplift anecdotes and stories from our members that are organizing and protecting low-income Asian American tenants, contextualized with data from the American Community Survey. We encourage our members, allies, and partners to use these briefs in our collective advocacy efforts to ensure the needs of Asian American renters are considered in policymaking. 

• We Need A Federally-Established National Floor for Tenants’ Rights
• We Need Increased Funding for Section 8 & Emergency Rental Assistance
• We Need Increased Resources to Ensure Language Access for LEP Renters
• We Need Sustainable Solutions for Safe and Affordable Housing 

These briefs specifically focus on Asian American communities after consulting with our members. They have identified the need for a separate body of research that addresses the significant and unique housing needs of NHPI communities. We look forward to partnering with our NHPI-serving members on that future research effort.

We would like to acknowledge the contributions of our members who lifted up the experiences of their clients and their staff to tell stories of our communities that too often go untold. Thank you to our research partners at UCLA Asian American Studies Center and Solidarity Research Center for their contributions to these briefs. These briefs are made possible through the generous support of TD Charitable Foundation.