How To Spot, Address Section 8 Discrimination

It’s called ​“choice” vouchers. More and more low-income renters are finding that choice limited.

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.

To learn more about what qualifies as illegal housing discrimination and how both tenants and landlords can prevent and respond to such instances, we spoke to Erin Kemple, the executive director of the Connecticut Fair Housing Center. Highlights from our conversation follow.

(A newsletter version of this interview, with additional links and sections, is available online here. And if you would like to subscribe to these ​“housing update” reports in newsletter form, please click here.)

A look at Section 8 discrimination with Erin Kemple

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,” Kemple said.

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.)

The Connecticut Fair Housing Center also investigates Fair Housing complaints, which can be filed at this form or at (888) 247‑4401. The Center provides free legal counseling to victims of housing discrimination.

How common is this type of housing discrimination?

It’s hard to tell. The true number of housing discrimination instances is likely far higher than the number of formal complaints. Several New Haven tenants told the Independent they had been turned away from apartments in April because of their Section 8 voucher without reporting the incident.

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,” Kemple said. ​“They’ll think, ​‘Oh, well that’s just the way life is. Landlords are allowed to say that.’ ​”

The CT Fair Housing Center and the CHRO reported conflicting trends in discrimination complaints since the start of the pandemic.

The number of fair housing complaints that the CT Fair Housing Center received ​“basically tripled” at the height of the pandemic, ​“as the courts shut down and oversight seemed to be gone,” Kemple said.

That spike has since simmered down. According to Kemple, by mid-April, the Connecticut Fair Housing Center had received 177 complaints of housing discrimination since the start of 2022. ​“Before the pandemic, it was something like 130 or 120” for the same time period.

Kemple theorized, ​“It’s clear that as there are fewer rental units on the market, there is more discrimination. The more tenants that are looking, the more landlords feel they can discriminate.“

The CHRO’s data complicates this picture. The CHRO received 347 housing complaints — 30 of which were source-of-income discrimination complaints — in 2019. In 2020, those numbers rose to 395 total complaints, 50 of which were source-of-income complaints. But in 2021, just 224 housing complaints, 35 of which were source-of-income related, were filed with the state agency.

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.

Kemple believes that Section 8 discrimination is often a form of racism based on stereotypes of voucher recipients. ​“We believe that refusing to take Section 8 is a proxy for Race and National Origin,” Kemple said. ​“A lot of landlords know they can’t refuse to rent to someone because of their national origin or race,” but they don’t realize that source-of-income discrimination is also illegal.

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. Horsford stressed that her company, Farnam Realty, welcomes Section 8 tenants, but she argued that the system ​“needs a real technology overhaul,” Horsford said.

Section 8 vouchers also come with regular housing code inspections from city agencies. As legal aid attorney Shelley White hypothesized in January, some landlords may wish to avoid that process.

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.

Not only are statements like that illegal, Kemple said, but if a housing unit ​“won’t pass an inspection for Section 8, they shouldn’t be renting it to anyone.“

What can tenants do to protect against source-of-income discrimination?

Kemple advises Section 8 tenants to look at a prospective apartment the same way many other tenants would: looking at it in person, checking out the neighborhood, assessing the unit’s quality — all before diving into the details of how they’ll pay rent.

​“We always tell tenants to look at the apartment first and then bring up the Section 8, because often in that case, [if the tenant’s application is denied,] it then becomes clear that the Section 8 is the issue” — and not another factor like a credit score or landlord reference, Kemple said.

Kemple also advises tenants to write down the dates and times of every interaction with a potential landlord in case it’s ever helpful to have a record of those exchanges.

Finally, Kemple urged tenants to report any suspected incidents of housing discrimination as soon as possible. It’s much easier to investigate a complaint soon after the incident occurred, she said.

And how can landlords avoid unintentional source-of-income discrimination?

From a landlord’s perspective, Kemple said, there’s often confusion about what actually constitutes housing discrimination.

​“I often tell landlords to say, ​‘I take Section 8. See if Section 8 will take me,’ ” Kemple said. That response allows tenants to investigate whether the apartment meets the voucher program’s rent requirements without discouraging Section 8 tenants from applying.