1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Landlord Accountability Act of 2019 . 2. Congressional findings The Congress finds that— (1) the United States is in the midst of a housing crisis, as the homeownership rate has declined to 64.4 percent, which is lower than it was 20 years ago, while rental demand has increased and pushed vacancy rates down to 7.1 percent; (2) the median rental asking price is $1,003, up from $708 ten years ago; (3) in June 2018, United States housing rents hit an all-time high of $1,405 per month; of the 250 largest U.S. cities 88 percent experienced increases in housing rents over the previous year; (4) families and individuals that pay more than 30 percent of their income for housing are considered cost-burdened and have difficultly affording other necessities like food, clothing, transportation, and medical care; (5) almost half of all renters in the United States, approximately 19.9 million households, are cost-burdened; (6) 9.7 million extremely low-income renters spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent; of those renters, 8 million are considered severely cost-burdened and forced to spend more than half of their income on rent; (7) the current rental environment makes rental assistance under the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program of the Department of Housing and Urban Development vital to finding affordable housing for many families; (8) the Section 8 Program helps approximately 4.5 million low-income families, the elderly, and the disabled afford respectable housing in the private market; (9) the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program assists our Nation’s most economically vulnerable families—the average annual income for all voucher-funded recipients is only $14,444; (10) many of the individuals and families assisted by the Section 8 Program would be at risk of homelessness without the program