Section 8 voucher discrimination will be illegal in California starting January 1

2019-12-31T19:36:00-05:00

“No Section 8.” You’ll find those words on rental listings across the country. Landlords use them to deter people who rely on the federal Housing Choice Voucher Program, formerly known as Section 8, from applying for their units. Starting in January, a new California law will make that discrimination illegal.

A new law is slated to take effect in California on January 1, 2020 that will prevent landlords in the state from discriminating against federal housing voucher recipients.

The measure caps off a better-than-average year for tenants rights activists across the country—at the local level, at least—in America’s major cities that includes the passage of significant new rent control ordinances in New York State. In addition, at the national level, a slate of rent control and pro-public hosing initiatives have also shined a light on several facets of the ongoing struggles to reign in housing costs across the country.

A look at the alarmingly long wait times for Section 8 housing in U.S. cities

2018-01-04T13:59:00-05:00

Stacker was one of 188,000 people who applied for 20,000 spots in the voucher waiting line for the Housing Authority of the city of Los Angeles. And that line won’t be moving quickly. The Housing Authority’s Section 8 director, Carlos VanNatter, said only about 200 vouchers become available here every month, basically when a pay raise makes someone ineligible or someone dies.

While the national average wait time for Section 8 vouchers is currently more than two years (with nearly half of all housing authorities having closed their lists to new applicants), the situation in big cities like New York and Los Angeles is so dire that residents have to apply for a coveted spot on the waiting list via a lottery held every few years. And there's no sign of easing: "President Donald Trump's proposed 2018 budget would slash more than $6 billion from the U.S. Housing office, or HUD, which funds Section 8," Marketplace reports.

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Section 8 voucher discrimination will be illegal in California starting January 1

A look at the alarmingly long wait times for Section 8 housing in U.S. cities