What to Know About Voucher-Assistance Programs and Protections for Tenants

Scott Kroehle didn’t know what to expect when he began leasing one of his rental units to a tenant who used a federally funded housing voucher to help cover the rent.

Kroehle wondered if he was stepping into a tangle of bureaucracy, invasive inspections and delays — the kinds of worries that keep some landlords from renting to tenants with vouchers, even though governments across the country have made such discrimination illegal.

But since renting to his first voucher tenant in 2015, Kroehle’s main impression of the voucher program is that it provides stability and consistency for both him and his tenant.

“You have a renter who can afford to pay their rent, which is the whole point,’’ said Kroehle, 37, who owns and operates 16 rental units in Cleveland, Ohio — three of which are occupied by tenants with vouchers. “It eases the pressure on the tenant, which eases the pressure on the relationship between the tenant and the landlord.”

A home is generally considered affordable if the rent is no more than 30% of a family’s monthly income. Vouchers bridge the gap between the monthly rent and the amount that low-income families can afford to pay.

Despite the benefits, some landlords will not rent to people enrolled in voucher programs or who use other forms of rental assistance. In some places, that amounts to breaking the law.

To educate landlords and renters on source-of-income protections, Zillow now includes a listing feature that makes it easy to check whether a rental is in a locale that bans discrimination based on income source. The information appears on each rental listing under the “Local Legal Protections” feature of the website.

Legal protections target source of income

To ensure that every qualified renter has an equal chance at housing, a growing number of governments at every level are enacting laws to ban discrimination against renters, including those who rely on vouchers to pay their rent.

The measures — called “source of income” laws — are designed to protect renters whose income derives from public assistance, or in many cases, any legal source. That may include: 

• Social Security
• Child support
• Alimony or palimony
• Disability
• Government housing programs

The federally funded Housing Choice Voucher program is the nation’s largest rental housing program, serving some 5 million low-income households, including families, the elderly and people with disabilities.

The program pays rent subsidies to private landlords through a network of 2,100 state and local housing agencies across the country.

The voucher program is often called Section 8, a reference to the section in the federal law that first authorized housing subsidies for low-income families in 1937.

Legal protections differ by state, city

The federal Fair Housing Act outlaws housing discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex  (including sexual orientation and gender identity), familial status and disability, but does not explicitly protect tenants with vouchers.

Because there is no federal law explicitly requiring landlords to accept all housing vouchers or other sources of income, states, counties and cities have stepped in with laws to prevent discrimination against tenants.

Those source of income protections differ among jurisdictions. For example, some places only protect sources of public assistance, such as those provided through vouchers  and rapid re-housing and permanent supportive housing programs. Other places — such as Washington, D.C., New Jersey and St. Louis, Missouri — protect a broader range of income sources, such as alimony or palimony. Laws in other places do not require landlords to participate in rental assistance programs like housing vouchers.

Some of the laws carry hefty penalties and protections, including damages, civil penalties, court costs and attorney fees.  

Given the variety of laws, landlords need to understand what source of income laws apply to them. For instance, many state and local source of income laws prohibit discriminatory advertising in rental listings, so, depending on the law, it may be illegal to advertise a property as 'no section 8.'

Landlord obligations and protections are unchanged

Under the voucher program in most jurisdictions, landlords can still screen tenants in the usual ways, charge their regular fair-market rents and security deposits, and hold tenants accountable to the usual lease terms and rules.

They also can raise rents to reflect market prices and maintenance needs and remove tenants for significant lease violations.

“All the normal rules apply,’’ Kroehle, the Cleveland landlord, said. “Tenants still have to comply with the lease terms as usual.”

Probably the biggest difference in renting to tenants enrolled in voucher programs is the inspection process. The local agency that administers the vouchers conducts an initial health and safety inspection of the unit and then reinspects it annually to certify that it’s safe.

“It’s a standard inspection — things that should be taken care of in a house,’’ Krohle said.

Voucher holders are pre-screened by their local authority, which is required to provide landlords with the type of screening it conducted on the tenant, the tenant’s current and previous addresses, and the names and addresses of any known landlords who previously rented to the applicant.

Before the lease is signed, the landlord files the lease and other required forms with the local housing authority for approval. Once approved, the renter can move in. The first payment typically takes a few weeks to set up, but once that happens, the landlord can expect consistent monthly payments to cover the subsidized portion of the rent while the tenant pays their share.

Tenants can wait years for a voucher

Tenants can spend years on a waiting list before they’re screened and approved for a voucher, and they can lose their voucher if they violate the terms of their lease.

“A tenant who goes through the effort to get a voucher has to jump through a lot of hoops,’’ Kroehle said. “That tells you that they’re going to value the relationship with you as a landlord because they’ve already invested so much into it.”

For Kroehle, that’s meant long-term tenants who almost always pay their rent on time and communicate when they run into issues.

“We have extremely low turnover because of the relationship we have with our tenants,’’ Krohle said. “We try to facilitate good faith relationships. That’s easier when you remove one of the main hurdles.”

By participating in the voucher programs, landlords like Krohle are providing affordable, stable housing for families at a time when millions are struggling to pay rent.

Landlords interested in learning more about their responsibilities under fair housing and anti-discrimination laws can find that information on the websites of fair housing centers in their area, at state or local civil rights or human rights agencies, and the attorney general’s office in their state or D.C.