The city of Tucson is considering a new rule that would prevent property owners from rejecting applicants with rental subsidies, a move the city hopes will increase housing options for its most vulnerable residents.
The city’s Housing and Community Development Department, or HCD, is soliciting public input for the ordinance that would prohibit landlords from rejecting prospective tenants based on their source of income, including those using housing choice vouchers, formally known as Section 8.
HCD will continue receiving feedback through a public survey that closes Wednesday, Aug. 24, and Tucson’s City Council will consider final approval of the ordinance on Sept. 27. Although the ordinance wouldn’t necessarily require landlords to accept housing vouchers, they wouldn’t be able to deny a tenant on the basis of rental subsidies.
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The city already has a human service ordinance that bars “prejudice and discrimination” based on factors like race, religion, sex and familial status. By adding “source of income” to the ordinance, HCD hopes those depending on rental assistance such as child support, social security, disability insurance or “any other form of governmental assistance, benefit, or subsidy,” will expand the limited housing options for voucher holders.
The federal government’s housing choice voucher program is intended to help low-income families, people with disabilities and seniors living on fixed incomes to afford housing in the private market. Recipients are not supposed to spend more than 30% to 40% of their overall income on housing.
“The reality out there today is that if I have a voucher, and I have some other income, and I apply, a landlord will just look at it and say, ‘No, I don’t accept vouchers,’ and we believe that this is a form of discrimination,” said Ernesto Portillo, the public information officer for HCD. “This is just one more layer of protection for a class of people that currently have no protection, the federal government doesn’t give this protection.”
Twenty-one states and more than 100 municipalities have some sort of law banning source-of-income discrimination, according to the Poverty and Race Research Action Council. Tucson would be the first Arizona city to adopt such an ordinance.
Under the proposal, the city would work with the Office of Equal Opportunity Programs and the Southwest Fair Housing Council to educate property owners on the source-of-income rules. Tenants who believe they have been rejected due to their source of income would file a complaint, and if discrimination is found, the city would enter into a conciliation agreement with the landlord without penalties. If there are repeat offenses or “blatant disregard” for the ordinance, the city says, property managers could incur civil infractions or penalties.
The waitlist to get a housing voucher in Tucson has been closed since January 2018. According to HCD, the department receives about $43 million a year to fund the vouchers, but fewer landlords are willing to accept them, and …….