New Orleans Section 8 is the key housing assistance support for lower income tenants in the United States. As public housing has been gutted over the last generation, the only real lifeline for lower income tenants has been Section 8. The waiting lists for such vouchers are extensive in city after city. Even with a voucher, a family can pay up to 40% of their income for rent with the voucher paying the rest. Even winning a voucher, a tenant only has a year in which to find a landlord who is Section 8 certified and willing to accept the voucher. Often there is “source of income” discrimination by landlords against tenants, sometimes giving landlords cover for other forms of discrimination against family size, disability, and race.
The Trump Administration initially had opposed massive cuts to Section 8, aiming to reduce funding of HUD housing assistance programs by 43%. As par for the course in the administration’s war against the poor, they had also proposed a two-year time limit for rental aid, block-granting funds to states which would duplicate the discretionary horrors that have afflicted welfare assistance, and in general stricter eligibility rules, which would obviously leave millions at risk of eviction. In a rare pushback against the administration, Congress actually increased Section 8 rental assistance for the current fiscal year in the final Consolidated Appropriations Act by over $2 billion. This was good news, but given the affordability crisis for tenants throughout the country it obviously doesn’t solve the problem.
A state court decision in New York is also cause for concern. An appeals court there unanimously held that a New York law requiring the landlord to accept Section 8 vouchers violated his constitutional rights. The landlord had objected to the requirement that the authorities could search the rental unit to make sure it complied with the minimum HUD standards. He successfully claimed protection under the constitutional prohibitions against search and seizure without a warrant. In New York this could threaten 245,000 tenants along with tens of thousands more that are covered under more localized tenant support problems.
Landlords throughout the country have balked at opening their apartments to Section 8 vouchers. The New York decision could give support to the fight many landlords and their associations are waging around the country exacerbating the crisis for tenants desperate to find safe and affordable housing and at risk of their voucher being timed out and lost before they are successful.
Meanwhile, the waiting lists for the few units of available public housing continue to grow, just as the voucher lists are growing. The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates “2.8 million families are on waiting lists for the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program nationwide. However, this number only reflects households on currently active lists; if all housing agencies kept their waiting lists open to new applicants, researchers estimate that 9.5 million families would be waiting for vouchers.”
Low-income tenants can’t afford to buy a break. The government at every level needs to step up and step in, so that landlords aren’t able to be the choke point preventing tenants from finding affordable housing.