Landlords frequently discriminate against would-be tenants who use the vouchers distributed by the government to help low-income Americans get better access to rental homes, according to a new study.
Housing choice vouchers are meant to enable low-income families and individuals obtain affordable housing outside of “areas of poverty or minority concentration.” Participants can use the vouchers as payment, or supplemental payment, for a rental unit. In the midst of a housing crunch so severe that some analysts call it a crisis, the study’s findings, that a preferred mechanism of easing that burden isn’t helping, is striking.
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The study was sponsored by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the government agency that administers the Housing Choice Vouchers Program. It was carried out by the Urban Institute’s Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy center.
It found that landlords often reject tenants who intend to use vouchers – if they even bother to turn up for showings. For would-be tenants, searching for housing with vouchers is “time-consuming and frustrating,” the researchers wrote. On average, across the country, the researchers screened more than 90 rental advertisements to get approved to rent a unit with the use of a voucher.
The researchers read through more than 341,000 rental ads in five metro areas in order to identify units for which they could test landlord behaviors. They did that by sending a pair of “testers” – one using a voucher, one not – to track how landlords behave.
Fort Worth Los Angeles Newark Philadelphia Washington, D.C. Total tests 1146 998 782 422 432 Denial rate 78.0% 76.4% 30.9% 66.8% 14.8% Number of ads screened per completed voucher acceptance test 58.4 137.3 143.8 23.6 35.1As the researchers wrote, “This pilot study’s findings show that landlords are not passive actors in the HCV program. They have incredible power in deciding if voucher holders can use housing benefits and, ultimately, where voucher holders can live.”
The denial rates for voucher holders were so high, in fact, that the researchers found they could not accurately assess the role of race or ethnicity in landlord decision-making.
There may be some hope, however. Denial rates in metros like Fort Worth and Los Angeles were many times higher than those in Newark and Washington, D.C., where there are local legal protections against discrimination on the basis of voucher use, suggesting that such laws do have an impact and could be expanded.
It’s important to note that there’s no national law prohibiting landlords from refusing to rent to tenants with vouchers. Under the Fair Housing Act, landlords can’t turn down a tenant based on race, color, national origin, sex, religion, disability, and family status – but voucher status isn’t among those considerations.
The researchers also suggest that landlord be “encouraged” to participate in the program, and even “recruited” through the use of stronger financial incentives or removal of perceived disincentives. More to the point, the program’s payment standards could be increased to bring the amount voucher holders can pay more in line with market rents, the researchers said.
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