The affordable housing crisis is impacting nearly every community, every neighborhood. Rents are going up almost everywhere, even as families struggle to make ends meet. And home prices, especially for first-time home buyers, keep climbing further out of reach.

There’s a Wall Street-driven reason for that – private hedge funds are exacerbating the crisis by buying up housing in bulk.

All across America, hedge funds and private equity are using their vast fortunes to outbid everyday Americans looking to buy homes. And because their investors demand Wall Street-style returns, they're driving up rents and cutting back on repairs.

In order to protect American home buyers from Wall Street greed, Senator Jeff Merkley has a plan to end Wall Street ownership of residential housing. While aspects of the housing crisis— including a supply shortage—will take years to remedy, others can be addressed immediately, including a ban on hedge funds and private equity firms owning and controlling large parts of the American housing market.

It's time to ban Wall Street from buying up the homes in our neighborhoods.

Sign the petition: We must take action to make housing affordable by ensuring that housing is for homes, not hedge funds.