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People who favor tenant rights recently won a small victory in Menlo Park, when the City Council on June 19 unanimously and without discussion approved a policy that prohibits landlords of properties with three or more housing units from discriminating against renters based on their source of income, including whether they receive rent subsidies.
According to Clay Curtin, interim housing and economic development manager, the matter was largely a housekeeping item intended to modernize the city’s housing laws to align with other cities. In 2014, when the council approved its housing element, it adopted a goal to pass such an anti-discrimination ordinance.
“It just clarifies things so that our ordinance is updated and aligned with what other cities have done,” Curtin said.
According to staff reports, people most likely to be affected by this policy are those who hold rental assistance vouchers and are looking for housing in Menlo Park.
The designated rental assistance program in San Mateo County is called “Moving to Work,” which operates as a five-year “self-sufficiency” program, said Inga Godin, housing program specialist with the San Mateo County Housing Authority. Under the program, a tenant with a voucher pays 30 percent of his or her income to the landlord, and the Housing Authority subsidizes the rest of the rent.
According to Menlo Park city staff, there are about 4,300 low-income families in San Mateo County who have Section 8 vouchers, or federally-funded subsidies to cover the cost of qualifying households’ rent beyond the first 30 percent.
The county’s waitlist is thousands deep, so the housing authority selects participants for the program by lottery, according to Godin.
People lucky enough to receive vouchers must then find a landlord willing to participate in the program. Once a household has won the lottery and receives a housing voucher, it has has 180 days to find a landlord willing to accept it. While that period sounds like a lot given the conditions, Godin said, voucher holders are “quite often” unable to find willing landlords.
In a region teeming with six-figure-earning prospective tenants chomping at the bit for a place to live, it has been a major challenge to find landlords willing to house lower-income people, she said. For the past three years or so, the county housing authority has even offered financial incentives – such as $1,000 bonuses to new participating landlords – to sweeten the deal for landlords.
Even so, she said, “Roughly half (of the voucher holders) are not going to find anything. It is pretty sad.”
Landlords who participate in the voucher program retain their rights based on whatever city they’re in, she added. Which means, in most places in the county, they can evict a tenant at any time with 90 days’ notice and increase rent as much or as often as they want, she said.
Initially, the agency typically inspects the housing unit – whether it be a house, townhome, condominium or apartment – to ensure it meets minimum health and safety standards, and there is some extra paperwork involved.
Legal groundwork
While Menlo Park’s ordinance will not expressly force qualifying landlords to participate in the voucher program, it could lay the groundwork for a voucher holder to bring a legal case forward if he or she feels discriminated against because he or she is a voucher holder.
In other words, the policy could enable legal services organizations to sue a landlord on behalf of a tenant, Housing Commissioner Karen Grove pointed out in May when the Housing Commission deliberated on the matter. The commission recommended the council approve it on a 6-0-1 vote on May 9.
A violation of the ordinance would be considered a misdemeanor, punishable with fines up to $1,000 or six months in county jail.
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The statement that landlords can increase rent as often or as much is not in fact true. They cannot increase rent more than the lowest priced rental unit in the building. This could lead to rental increases being levied at a higher rent than would otherwise happen for long term tenants if landlords are made to increase their workload to do business with the housing rules. It will help some and could hurt many.
I have had family members accept Section 8 vouchers in the past. They were guaranteed that if the tenant damaged the property it would be covered by the program. In fact the tenants did do several thousands of dollars of structural and cosmetic damage all documented with before and after pictures. When they submitted the claim it was denied and they were out the cost of the repairs. That is why I would never accept Section 8 vouchers. It is not the people it is the program that does not meet it’s commitments and poses too big of a risk.
This is not an isolated issue, I know two other people who have stopped accepting Section 8 in the past 10 years because of similar issues. They need to fix the program before they can expect people to want to accept Section 8 vouchers
I own rental property in California. I have a condo in the East Bay and I used to rent to Section 8 tenants because Alameda County stood behind the damages caused by the tenants. Then Alameda County changed its policy. The problem with Section 8 tenants is that they not held accountable for the damages they cause.
So what if you win a case in court and BTW Alameda County hands down judgments based on not who is at fault but rather that the Landlord can afford it. And in those rare instance where the Landlord wins then the problem is collecting on the judgement. Good Luck with that. So after one substantial loss I did not accept any more Section 8 tenants. The only thing that keeps tenants from wrecking your place is a deposit equal to 2 months rent. Now they have a stake in the game.
I think the Council really blundered on that one. It makes as much sense as Prop 47.
Also, the prohibition of discrimination based on income is a joke. If the income stream is illegal or at risk, like a day trader, the landlord can’t be expected to assume that risk. I have rented to just about anyone who had a paycheck and whose income was at least 3x the rent. But I would never rent to anyone whom can not verify a legitimate source of income or whose income is at risk.