Ordinance change would protect Section 8 housing applicants

Imagine you're a low-income person with a low-paying job and the good fortune of having a federal housing voucher to help with rent.

Now, that person in Cedar Rapids and most other cities has the task of finding a landlord willing to accept the voucher as partial payment of rent.

Some landlords don't want to mess with the vouchers, but what the Cedar Rapids Civil Rights Commission is worried about is that some landlords don't want to mess with the people with the vouchers.

For that reason, the commission is proposing something of a leading-edge change to the city's civil rights ordinance that would make it a violation for anyone to deny housing to a renter solely because they derive income from government assistance, including a federal government Section 8 housing voucher.

Karl Cassell, the commission's executive director, on Wednesday said he fully expects push back from some of the city's landlords beginning next Monday and Tuesday evening at public forums designed to get input on the commission's proposed changes to the city's civil-rights ordinance. The City Council eventually will vote on any changes.

“We totally understand that this is not going to come without some flak,” Cassell said.

Cassell said the proposed ordinance change to prohibit discrimination based on “lawful sources of income” does not mean that a prospective tenant with a voucher, for instance, must be allowed to rent an apartment. Rather, the prospective tenant must be allowed to apply to rent and have the application reviewed just like any other applicant, he said.

“(Now you can be denied) based on your circumstances without being able to prove you're a viable tenant,” Cassell said. “A lot of that isn't even considered as soon as you come in the door.”

The commission also proposes additional changes to protect people from discrimination based on their gender identity and marital status and to hold designers and builders responsible so their projects meet the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Laura O'Leary, a Civil Rights Commission member and manager of the Pheasant Run Apartments in southwest Cedar Rapids, said on Wednesday that she supports most of the proposed changes, but she said she opposes the proposed requirement that landlords be required to consider tenants with Section 8 housing vouchers.

The federal Section 8 program, she said, long has been a voluntary one for landlords and she said the proposed ordinance change would change that for Cedar Rapids landlords.

Only one tenant in her 231-unit apartment complex, she reported, has a Section 8 voucher, a program which she said some landlords feel comes with additional “red tape” including extra inspections.

At the same time, O'Leary said nothing in the proposed ordinance prohibiting landlords from discriminating based on lawful sources of income would alter a landlord's standard background check of a tenant, which she said includes credit checks, court checks and reference checks to see if a tenant is a viable one.

Under the proposed change, though, O'Leary said landlords also would have to count alimony and child-support payments as income even though those sometimes those don't materialize as the recipient hopes, she said.

O'Leary said she understood that the city had plenty of landlords willing to participate in the Section 8 voucher program, so some landlords are asking, “Why are they fixing a program that's not broken?” she said.

Robin Tucker, a local Realtor and businessman, this week said the proposed ordinance change related to housing vouchers does rub some landlords the wrong way.

“What if I don't want any more to do with government than required, which is how some people look at it,” Tucker said. “Should landlords be required to do business with government?”

The commission's Cassell said the issue goes back to the fundamental that responsible tenants should be able to choose where they live.

“If people aren't free to live where they want to live, we go back to a day and age where communities were very segregated,” he said. “That's the impetus to look at this as critically as we are.”

The Iowa Civil Rights Commission does not include “lawful sources of income” as one of its protected classes nor does the city of Iowa City's human rights ordinance.

O'Leary said that proposed changes to Cedar Rapids' ordinance related to marital status would not allow a landlord to avoid renting to a couple solely because the two are not married.

She noted that cities can add to the number of protected classes as it sees fit. Cedar Rapids, for instance, does not permit discrimination based on age, which allows for an 18-year-old to rent a house where they might not be able to in some spots outside of Cedar Rapids, she said.

The city commission forum on Monday will be held from 6 p.m. to 8:15 p.m. at the Cedar Rapids Public Library's location in Westdale Mall. Proposed ordinance changes related to marital status will be discussed first followed by those related to gender identity.

The Tuesday forum will be held at St. Paul's United Methodist Church, 1340 Third Ave. SE, from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Proposed ordinance changes related to lawful sources of income will be discussed first followed by changes related to construction and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Cassell noted that the ordinance changes would apply to housing, employment, education, credit and public accommodation.