Head of Kansas City’s housing voucher program fears anti-discrimination law goes too far
A proposed ordinance that would forbid Kansas City landlords from refusing to accept federal housing vouchers and reject renters solely for having a criminal records or a bad credit score will be revised and most likely considered by the full City Council in January.
However, a two-hour committee hearing at City Hall on Tuesday ended leaving some uncertainty on the timing and final scope of the proposal.
Sixth District Councilman Johnathan Duncan, one of six co-sponsors, said he plans to move for the final adoption of the ordinance as-is at Thursday’s council meeting. But Mayor Quinton Lucas suggested a longer timetable that would give council members a chance to amend the 19-page document to reflect some of the concerns raised by landlords and Edwin Lowndes, executive director of the Housing Authority of Kansas City, which runs the city’s voucher program.
Lowndes said he worried that some of the language in the ordinance was confusing, and other parts might discourage landlords from providing affordable housing options.
“Anything we can do to improve our relationships with the landlords working with the city. We would appreciate that,” he said.
The ordinance introduced late last month would prohibits landlords from refusing to rent to someone based on their source of income, be it from gig work or use of a federal housing choice voucher, otherwise known as Section 8.
The ordinance would impose fines of either $500 or $1,000 depending on the type of violation.
Banning discrimination based on income, criminal record and more
As of 2022, 17 states, 21 counties and 85 cities had laws making it illegal for landlords to refuse to accept housing choice vouchers or discriminate based on renters’ source of income, according to the Poverty & Race Research Action Council.
The civil rights advocacy group estimated that 57% of households using vouchers live in jurisdictions covered by those laws.
But as it stands, Kansas City’s proposed ordinance goes further than comparable laws in some other cities. In addition to prohibiting discrimination based on a tenant’s source of income, it also bans landlords from refusing tenants based solely on the prospective tenant’s criminal record, credit score or eviction history.
Those added factors are what most concerned Lowndes from the city’s housing authority. He said landlords should have the chance to interview tenants to see if they have a support system or pose a risk for re-offending, for example.
The city’s tenants union KC Tenants took a lead role in writing the proposed ordinance, the passage of which Lucas set out as one of his goals in his Aug. 1 inaugural address.
Tenants and landlords pack City Hall
Members of the group packed the council chamber well before Lucas gaveled in the start of the the council’s special committee for legal review. Nearly two-thirds of the seats closest to the committee were occupied by 100 to 150 KC Tenants members and supporters in their yellow t-shirts. The landlords, who arrived later, occupied the back rows and stood along the walls.
KC Tenants leader Alaysha Jenkins led off the testimony with a tearful story of how it was hard to find landlords who would take housing vouchers, and that she and her two daughters ended up renting a house that did not meet their standards because her voucher was three days away from expiring.
“Why should it matter where you get your money if you can pay the rent,” Jenkins said. “I use a voucher … My money is as good as anyone else’s.”
KC Tenants organizer Brandon Henderson called many of the landlords that do accept vouchers as landlords of last resort.
“This ordinance does not force anyone to do anything,” he said. It simply states that landlords cannot have a blanket policy refusing to accept vouchers or refusing to rent to people based on their source of income, he said.
But landlord groups say they shouldn’t be required to participate in a voluntary federal program and have inundated council members with emails urging the council not to adopt the ordinance.
David Stokes, municipal policy director at the libertarian Show Me Institute, said four out of five landlords already accept housing vouchers. Requiring all to do so would, he said, likely drive some local landlords out of the rental housing market, which he said would drive up rents if they sold their houses and small apartment buildings to out-of-state corporate owners.
“I believe that for the city to mandate this federal program at the local level, I think will be very harmful,” he said.
Lucas, Duncan, Mayor Pro Tem Ryana Parks-Shaw, Councilmembers Eric Bunch, Darrell Curls and Andrea Bough are co-sponsors of the ordinance, which may undergo more changes before the full council votes on it.
