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How To Spot, Address Section 8 Discrimination
Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers are a rental subsidy program funded by the federal government and administered by local agencies like the city’s public housing authority. The vouchers cover at least a portion of the rent for a low-income tenant living in privately owned housing. The program has emerged over the past five decades as one of the nation’s largest efforts to provide a place to live for low-income renters, especially as the federal government has dramatically cut back its investments in public housing complexes.
Since the start of the pandemic, tenants receiving federal “Section 8” Housing Choice Vouchers have found it more difficult to find housing that will accept their vouchers. A growing number of families haven’t been able to find housing within the 60 to 120-day period before their vouchers expire.
The reasons behind that trend are complex — but one factor may be a possible increase in housing discrimination against Section 8 voucher holders in an increasingly tight housing market.
Can CT landlords refuse to rent to Section 8 tenants simply because of their vouchers?
No. Landlords are not legally able to either encourage or discourage members of a “protected class” from applying for an apartment. Protected classes include identity categories like race, gender, and religion — and under Connecticut state statute, they also include lawful sources of income, which covers rental assistance programs like Section 8.
Landlords can’t outright deny a tenant because of their source of income — and they can’t suggest or hint that the tenant shouldn’t apply, either.
“A landlord is only supposed to say, ‘Yes, I take Section 8; Give me your paperwork,”
As of a 2019 State Supreme Court ruling for Lopez v. William Raveis Real Estate, Inc., a case that CT Fair Housing brought to court, real estate agents can also be held accountable for housing discrimination, even if they did not receive explicit instruction from the property owners to filter out tenants with a certain income source or identity.
That said, landlords are allowed to set rents above the range that Section 8 is willing to cover, effectively disqualifying voucher recipients from applying for the apartment.
Where can tenants report Section 8 discrimination?
The Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities investigates Fair Housing Act complaint, including allegations of Section 8 discrimination. Tenants can call (800) 477‑5737 ext. 3403, or (860) 541‑3459 for hearing impairment resources, to reach the commission’s Housing Discrimination Unit. (More info here.)
How common is this type of housing discrimination?
In fact, many don’t realize that reporting Section 8 discrimination is an option. “They’ve heard it so often, or it has happened to them so often, that they think it’s a legal thing to say, They’ll think, ‘Oh, well that’s just the way life is. Landlords are allowed to say that.’ ”
Darcy Strand, the CHRO’s legislative and administrative advisor, noted in an email that “there’s almost certainly more housing discrimination on the basis of source of income occurring than these numbers reflect, but we find that a lot of people don’t realize that it’s illegal to discriminate on this basis in Connecticut.“
Why does source-of-income discrimination occur?
It might seem counter-intuitive that some landlords would try to avoid guaranteed income streams like Section 8 vouchers.
The Section 8 program, along with some other programs like the state’s RAP vouchers, also requires a significant amount of legwork from landlords in the form of paperwork, inspection preparations, and navigation of an outdated system.As local landlord Carol Horsford told the Independent, the Section 8 program requires her to fill out stacks of forms by hand and deliver those forms in person to various city agencies for each tenant.
Section 8 vouchers also come with regular housing code inspections from city agencies.
Multiple tenants told the Independent that they’d frequently encountered landlords or realtors who refused to accept Section 8 tenant applications because, they said, their units would not be able to pass the inspection.
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