S.J. may help users of housing vouchers
Proposed law would aid Section 8 tenants who face discrimination from landlords
In a move that is energizing tenant advocates but enraging some landlords, San Jose will consider pursuing a law that would make it easier for people who receive rent vouchers to find a place to live.
The nation’s 10th largest city currently doesn’t require landlords to take what are commonly known as Section 8 vouchers, federal subsidies that low-income residents use to help cover rent. And according to a recent survey by the city’s Housing Department, about twothirds of landlords don’t accept the vouchers.
To compel more to do so, the San Jose City Council on
Tuesday could direct staff to draft a so-called source of income ordinance to prevent landlords from using different terms to evaluate potential tenants with subsidies and those without.
“It’s hugely important,” said Erika Fairfield, an attorney with the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley. Right now, she said, “it’s really hard. We have really no way to push back.”
San Jose would join more than 40 other jurisdictions in the nation with protections for voucher holders on the books if it passes the ordinance.
The city contemplated the idea several years ago, but after Santa Monica wound up in court over a similar ordinance, it waited to move forward until Los Angeles County Superior Court upheld that rule.
Because San Jose lies in one of the nation’s most expensive rental markets, the voucher program — administered by Santa Clara County — is in high demand. The wait list has more than 4,000 applicants hoping for relief.
But of the nearly 17,000 people in the county lucky enough to have vouchers, about 2,000 don’t use them.
And it isn’t for a lack of trying. Fairfield and wouldbe tenants say discrimination is pervasive and prevents people from finding a place to live.
According to a memo from the city’s Housing Department, “many apartment owners choose not to participate in housing voucher or rental subsidy programs for a variety of reasons, including not wanting to participate in the administrative process of the programs and/or perceived attributes of voucher holders.”
In some cases, Fairfield said, that means blatant racism.
Voucher holders are disproportionately African-American and Latino, Fairfield said, and “a lot of times it doesn’t look as bad to say, ‘No Section 8,’ when really, they are using that as a proxy for race.”
When low-income people can’t find a landlord who will accept a voucher, she said, they can be forced out of San Jose or into homelessness.
Often, people wind up clustered in very low-income neighborhoods, concentrating poverty and furthering segregation, two things voucher programs are supposed to alleviate.
“Clients coming in are at a loss for what to do,” Fairfield said. “The Bay Area is not somewhere you’re going to find affordable housing.”
A federal study found that voucher usage rates improve by 4 percent to 11 percent when cities and counties enact ordinances.
Joshua Howard, San Jose-based senior vice president at the California Apartment Association (CAA), said his group is also concerned about people losing homes. But he blamed the area’s lack of housing and bureaucracy for the problem, not landlords.
“The voucher program, for example, requires owners and operators to abide by federal regulations that differ from state and local laws,” Howard wrote in an email. “Many housing providers struggle with these complex rules and regulations which compromise their ability to provide quality housing at reasonable rents. CAA and its members would like to see more efforts by the city and county to encourage landlords to accept voucher holders rather than creating new mandates.”
Dan Faller, president of the Apartment Owners Association of California, which represents several thousand owners in the area, agreed.
“I would never take a Section 8 tenant unless I was forced to do so,” Faller said, adding that he doesn’t object to the tenants themselves but to housing regulations and rent control policies he thinks hurt the market.
Those are weak reasons not to pass an ordinance, Fairfield countered, adding that she doesn’t think the required paperwork and inspections are particularly onerous.
“It’s not like they’re going to have to upgrade the entire apartment,” she said.
In its memo, the Housing Department said that in addition to not evaluating would-be renters with subsidies differently, the ordinance should also prevent landlords from advertising that housing vouchers won’t be accepted and applying an income standard that rewards tenants who don’t rely on a rental subsidy.
“It is important to note that none of this work would force landlords to participate in a government housing program,” the memo cautions.
If the ordinance passes, the memo suggests doling out warnings for firsttime offenders who violate the rules rather than moving immediately to citations and fines.
Landlord groups say that’s better than the court system. But Fairfield is worried about giving errant landlords a free pass.
“We’ve got to make this a rule that has some teeth,” she said.
If the council approves the Housing Department’s memo Tuesday, staff will craft an ordinance, hold a series of public meetings and return to the council in the spring for final approval.