Housing Choice in Crisis

My organization, the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center (GNOFHAC), recently released an audit report about discrimination against Housing Choice Voucher holders (“HCVP” or “Section 8”) in the Greater New Orleans rental market.  Our study revealed that landlords refused to consider voucher holders as tenants 82% of the time.  Preliminary results also suggest that, due to intentional discrimination and program dysfunction, voucher holders end up relegated to a small, isolated, and likely low-resourced segment of the rental housing market. This is particularly problematic, since one of the stated goals of the Housing Choice Voucher Program is to promote race and class integration.

Audits in other areas of the country have turned up similar findings and point to the need for serious reform in federal housing policy.  We recommend 10 actions to make housing policy more inclusive, fair and effective.

Our study demonstrates that while 75% of landlord refusals were outright rejections, 7% of the time, landlords added additional terms and conditions for voucher holders that were tantamount to a denial.

Through interviews with housing providers, advocates, tenants, and local officials, we found that the alarming rate of discrimination is driven by two primary causes:

• Discrimination against and stereotypes of low-income, African Americans: Interviews with housing providers indicated that there was intentional discrimination against low-income, African American voucher holders, who comprise 99% of the voucher program in New Orleans.  For example, one landlord stated he would not take a voucher holder “until Black ministers…start teaching morals and ethics to their own, so they don’t have litters of pups like animals and they’re not milking the system.”
• Dysfunctional administration of the voucher program: Advocates, tenants, housing providers, and local officials all pointed to the severely dysfunctional administration of the voucher program in New Orleans as a major impediment to successful participation. Stakeholders described discourteous and unresponsive staff at the local housing authority, and housing providers complained of being owed thousands of dollars in rent from the housing authority.

Results such as these should inform some drastic changes to housing policy across the country.  We recommend the following 10 actions to make these changes a reality:

1. Housing analysts should implement a study of whether the HCVP in New Orleans is meeting its stated goals of integration and enhancing access to opportunity*.
2. The federal government should immediately intervene to rectify problems with the administration of voucher programs in New Orleans.
3. HUD should work in partnership with local officials and HCVP participants to develop the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) Board of Directors to enhance oversight of HANO administration.
4. The federal government, the State of Louisiana and local municipalities should adopt legislation that prohibits Source of Income discrimination against voucher holders.
5. Local and national foundations should fund a public education campaign to address the prejudice surrounding voucher holders.
6. HUD should institute a moratorium on the demolition of additional hard units of public housing in the New Orleans region until it is sure that the HCVP is performing properly.
7. HUD should analyze the possibility of taking a regional approach to voucher administration, rather than segmentation by individual Public Housing Authorities (PHAs).
8. HUD needs to address Disaster Housing Assistance Program (DHAP) families facing housing crisis, and the federal government should commission a study of the operation of DHAP and how it could be better designed for future disasters.
9. HANO and other area PHAs should implement services to support voucher holders in their efforts to locate housing and attract quality landlords to the HCVP.
10. HANO and other area PHAs should implement services to proactively and reactively resolve housing authority administration disputes and frustrations.

As demonstrated in the recommendations, New Orleans faces some additional, Katrina-related challenges in providing quality, affordable housing to all residents.  But the Housing Choice in Crisis report and other studies like it indicate that we need to conduct a well-informed evaluation of our federal housing programs and how they are implemented locally to ensure that they are adequately addressing the needs of those that they were designed to serve.

(Photo of For Rent sign in New Orleans by Editor B)