LANDLORDS DISCRIMINATE OVER SECTION 8!!!
From New Orleans Times Picayune
August 21, 2009
Many New Orleans area landlords refuse to rent to families with Section 8 vouchers, according to an audit released Thursday by the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center.
In a phone test conducted between May and August, the center found that more than 80 percent of voucher holders were flatly refused by landlords who had advertised affordable rentals without specifying whether they accepted Section 8.
Racial discrimination also played into some landlords' decisions, with 9 percent of landlords taking vouchers from white women but refusing to accept them from black women, the audit showed.
Landlords, in general, told trained testers posing as tenants that they worried about not receiving rent or security deposits and cited past problems with the Housing Authority of New Orleans, which administers the rental assistance, formally known as the Housing Choice Voucher Program.
The audit concluded that one of the prime reasons that voucher holders in Orleans Parish experience a high rate of discrimination is because of the voucher program's "dysfunctional administration" by HANO, which causes landlords to shy away from vouchers because of slow and unpaid rents, and its "hard-to-reach, discourteous, slow and unhelpful" staff.
The Fair Housing Center suggests that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development should create better oversight of HANO and implement better services, including an ombudsman office to help resolve issues for both voucher families and landlords. Auditors also suggest that policymakers consider legislation similar to laws in 12 states and many large cities that prohibit landlords from discriminating by "source of income."
HANO administration has not yet had time to analyze the report, said general counsel Wayne Woods, who pledged that the agency would continue to work with its current Section 8 families and their landlords "to make sure that our program performs at a high quality level."
In recent months, landlords dealing with HANO have complained about more protracted delays and lack of attention, because HANO employees have been focused on the transition of several thousand households from temporary rental assistance from the Disaster Housing Assistance Program to more permanent Section 8 vouchers. Recently, HUD, in an acknowledgment of HANO's huge backlog, extended DHAP rental aid for two additional months. In light of this and other issues, the Fair Housing Center recommends a study of DHAP and where it fell short, to avoid similar problems after future disasters.
Last month, Stand For Dignity, a project of the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice, criticized HANO for holding onto thousands of vouchers that could be used by low-income tenants struggling to pay steep post-Katrina rents. As of July, HANO had signed leases and issued contracts with 9,563 voucher families out of a HUD allocation that totaled 13,370, according to HANO data.
The protesters' demands will be met next month when, for the first time in six years, HANO will begin to accept new Section 8 applications, through a mail-in lottery process that starts Sunday with applications distributed online, in local libraries and in The Times-Picayune and the Louisiana Weekly.
People have swarmed housing authority offices in other parishes when they announced caches of new vouchers. But, in general, far fewer voucher households reside in the other metro parishes, including 2,086 in Jefferson, 282 in St. Tammany, 182 in St. Charles, 99 in St. Bernard and 23 in Plaquemines, according to a May report cited by the Fair Housing Center audit.
As a result of what investigators determined was "a bias against vouchers," many families who use rental assistance cannot find apartments, especially in moderate-income neighborhoods, said the center's executive director, James Perry. As a result, most voucher families are concentrated in high-poverty neighborhoods, he said, noting that this defeats the very purpose of vouchers, which were designed to help low-income tenants rent property in neighborhoods that are more moderate-income and more racially diverse.
"Often voucher holders say they couldn't find decent housing in nice neighborhoods," Perry said.
August 21, 2009
Many New Orleans area landlords refuse to rent to families with Section 8 vouchers, according to an audit released Thursday by the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center.
In a phone test conducted between May and August, the center found that more than 80 percent of voucher holders were flatly refused by landlords who had advertised affordable rentals without specifying whether they accepted Section 8.
Racial discrimination also played into some landlords' decisions, with 9 percent of landlords taking vouchers from white women but refusing to accept them from black women, the audit showed.
Landlords, in general, told trained testers posing as tenants that they worried about not receiving rent or security deposits and cited past problems with the Housing Authority of New Orleans, which administers the rental assistance, formally known as the Housing Choice Voucher Program.
The audit concluded that one of the prime reasons that voucher holders in Orleans Parish experience a high rate of discrimination is because of the voucher program's "dysfunctional administration" by HANO, which causes landlords to shy away from vouchers because of slow and unpaid rents, and its "hard-to-reach, discourteous, slow and unhelpful" staff.
The Fair Housing Center suggests that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development should create better oversight of HANO and implement better services, including an ombudsman office to help resolve issues for both voucher families and landlords. Auditors also suggest that policymakers consider legislation similar to laws in 12 states and many large cities that prohibit landlords from discriminating by "source of income."
HANO administration has not yet had time to analyze the report, said general counsel Wayne Woods, who pledged that the agency would continue to work with its current Section 8 families and their landlords "to make sure that our program performs at a high quality level."
In recent months, landlords dealing with HANO have complained about more protracted delays and lack of attention, because HANO employees have been focused on the transition of several thousand households from temporary rental assistance from the Disaster Housing Assistance Program to more permanent Section 8 vouchers. Recently, HUD, in an acknowledgment of HANO's huge backlog, extended DHAP rental aid for two additional months. In light of this and other issues, the Fair Housing Center recommends a study of DHAP and where it fell short, to avoid similar problems after future disasters.
Last month, Stand For Dignity, a project of the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice, criticized HANO for holding onto thousands of vouchers that could be used by low-income tenants struggling to pay steep post-Katrina rents. As of July, HANO had signed leases and issued contracts with 9,563 voucher families out of a HUD allocation that totaled 13,370, according to HANO data.
The protesters' demands will be met next month when, for the first time in six years, HANO will begin to accept new Section 8 applications, through a mail-in lottery process that starts Sunday with applications distributed online, in local libraries and in The Times-Picayune and the Louisiana Weekly.
People have swarmed housing authority offices in other parishes when they announced caches of new vouchers. But, in general, far fewer voucher households reside in the other metro parishes, including 2,086 in Jefferson, 282 in St. Tammany, 182 in St. Charles, 99 in St. Bernard and 23 in Plaquemines, according to a May report cited by the Fair Housing Center audit.
As a result of what investigators determined was "a bias against vouchers," many families who use rental assistance cannot find apartments, especially in moderate-income neighborhoods, said the center's executive director, James Perry. As a result, most voucher families are concentrated in high-poverty neighborhoods, he said, noting that this defeats the very purpose of vouchers, which were designed to help low-income tenants rent property in neighborhoods that are more moderate-income and more racially diverse.
"Often voucher holders say they couldn't find decent housing in nice neighborhoods," Perry said.
Hello Ms. Muhammad,
Why do you not think about the sovereignty of Black Americans? Do you not believe that if we were sovereign people on a portion of this continent that we could call our very own country with borders, section 8 would become a thing of the past?
Get wise Ms. Muhammad.
What say you?