Housing ordinance a fairness and humanity issue
We know the Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination, and Dayton did right by folding income protections under its antidiscrimination in housing statute.
You can always hear a mother’s angst in her voice, and I heard that when I spoke with Ebony Brown.
Both of her children have suffered from homelessness. Her daughter couldn’t find a landlord in the Dayton area to accept her Housing Choice voucher, commonly known as Section 8, and didn’t have a place to live. She found an apartment in Columbus and now lives there.
Brown’s son had a voucher, but it expired because, she said, the apartments he applied to wouldn’t accept it. Now, he moves from shelters to friends’ couches as he tries to figure out what’s next.
So she was grateful when she heard the Dayton City Commission on Thursday made life a little easier for Brown’s children and people like them. The commission passed a “source of income” ordinance that says landlords can’t reject applicants solely based on the financial support they receive, including vouchers, child support, alimony, and the like.
“That’s a great idea,” she said. “They shouldn’t be able to turn people away like that.”
More than 90,000 families in Ohio use Section 8 vouchers, with nearly 8 out of 10 of those households living on less than $20,000 a year. Cities and states nationwide recognize that compelling more landlords to broaden what they consider income for rental purposes will help alleviate a growing housing crisis.
Local landlord groups opposed the ordinance because, in essence, it’s a pain dealing with federal government bureaucracy (true), and they shouldn’t be forced to join the voucher program.
I’m certainly sympathetic to the government intruding on private businesses. But we know the Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination, and Dayton did right by folding income protections under its anti-discrimination in housing statute.
Let’s not forget, landlords retain most of the power. They can still legally refuse to rent to anyone with a spotty job history, poor credit, bad references, or a criminal conviction, among other reasons.
Still, the city’s fair approach theoretically opens housing availability to groups whose income sources proved to be an impediment. It also maintains all of the landlord’s legal protections regarding screening applicants.
The noise surrounding the ordinance will die down once landlords see that beyond the pain of filling out the HUD paperwork, this isn’t a big deal.
That’s step one. Now, with an ordinance in hand, Dayton should work with other cities in the area for similar laws. Opponents have focused on the Section 8 requirements, but this ordinance also helps, for example, mothers with children whose incomes consist of alimony and child support. It helps veterans who live on disability benefits.
This is not a Section 8 issue. It’s a fairness and humanity issue.
Next, the city should take the lead in developing a strong public-private partnership. Several county groups work on housing issues; maybe there’s a way to pull them together to begin working, collectively, on long-term, non-government solutions. Lawmakers at all levels should provide support but stay out of the process.
Any group should include landlords, who can give input on what they need to succeed. Maybe it’s something as simple as help filing out the annoying HUD paperwork. Maybe it’s more. We need to find out.
And we should also address an issue no one discussed.
Voucher bias happens everywhere, like this big case in New York City. Time Magazine reported that stereotypes impact voucher recipients — some see them as lazy — as does racism. The Pew Trust looked at vouchers and noted that refusal to accept them mostly impacts women of color.
This community needs to study how much voucher bias has crept into the housing market here. How many more apartments would open if we could cut bias by 10%? Twenty percent?
I worry that this momentum will come to a halt, as often happens when a government becomes involved. They have so many other issues to tackle that it’s easy to go on to the next thing.
But fair and humane should take precedence. Let’s help people find affordable housing, not give them reasons we can’t.