Advocates behind the measure on the city’s May 6 special election ballot say it’s common for landlords to discriminate against Section 8 housing voucher users
Eddie Velazquez for PrismReports.org
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Landlords across 26 states in the U.S. are legally able to discriminate against tenants based on the source of their rental income, a practice that housing advocates say contributes to a mounting homelessness crisis in America.
In Lincoln, Nebraska, housing advocates and national civic engagement organizations hope that a ballot measure in a May 6 special election can end the practice and allow tenants to tap into vital rent affordability assistance such as the federal Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program. In 2022, more than 2 million families nationwide used housing vouchers, a form of rental assistance that subsidizes households’ rent.
“Source of income discrimination is when someone is turned away from housing because of the way that they would pay for that housing,” said Kasey Ogle, a senior staff attorney at Appleseed Nebraska, an organization that advocates for just causes in the state. “It is a common and pervasive practice to turn tenants away because of Section 8 housing vouchers.”
To codify source-of-income discrimination protections, Ogle and other advocates are working with national groups such as the Fairness Project, a nonprofit with a track record of effecting change through ballot measure initiatives.
After the coalition crafted a persuasive message and outreach plan, it gathered more than 15,300 signatures to get source-of-income discrimination protections on the ballot. Lincoln’s City Council unanimously voted in early March to have the ballot proposition ready for voters.
Ogle said that the proposition amends the city’s ordinances on antidiscrimination laws to include lawful sources of income as a protected class in housing matters. The amendment also empowers the local equal employment opportunity commission investigative unit, the Lincoln Commission on Human Rights, to investigate and prosecute complaints of discrimination based on the source of income.
“About a third of people who get a housing choice voucher from the local housing authority have to return that voucher because they’re unable to find someplace that will rent to them using that voucher,” Ogle said.
If tenants are unable to find a suitable home, the vouchers must be returned to the housing authority.
“Folks are having to put more of their income towards housing, which then makes folks more likely to face eviction, have to move, or do other things,” Ogle said.
Because Section 8 vouchers are annually renewed, Ogle said, the risk of not being able to remain in a home due to source of income discrimination is palpable. In some instances, the landlord has refused to renew a lease because they do not want to cooperate with the housing authority anymore, Ogle said.
Section 8 and other rental assistance programs, advocates in Nebraska say, are vital to helping tenants remain in affordable homes at a time when homelessness in the U.S. is rising sharply. Last year, about 23 of every 10,000 people across the country did not have a home—an 18% increase in homelessness from the previous year, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2024 homelessness report to Congress.
In Lincoln, the number of people without a home as of January 2025 rose by almost 10% from January 2024. Some of those displacements occurred due to almost 2,400 eviction filings last year in Lancaster County, where Lincoln is the county seat.
“It’s affecting so many people, but mostly it’s affecting the lowest income folks because they’re being squeezed so much,” Ogle said. “If folks higher on income scales are feeling squeezed, folks at bottom are the ones who are really feeling the strain and really facing just impossible situations.”
For tenants in the Section 8 program, the federal government subsidizes a portion of the rent at an eligible property through local public housing authorities. Tenants in Lincoln then pay about 27% of their adjusted household income toward rent and utilities, while the Lincoln Housing Authority pays the difference between what the tenant can afford to pay and what the landlord charges.
Only 24 states have clear antidiscrimination laws based on source of income, with some other municipalities joining in, according to a recent policy memo from the Washington, D.C.-based Poverty and Race Research Action Council (PRRAC). These state laws and local ordinances have varying degrees of effectiveness, the memo states. All in all, only about 60% of voucher holders are protected against source-of-income discrimination, the PRRAC estimates.
National advocates who helped get the Lincoln proposition on the ballot say propositions are a good way to get around legislative logjam. Kelly Hall, the executive director of the Fairness Project, said that local advocates tried to get the City Council in Lincoln to pass source-of-income discrimination protections. Hall said this ballot measure may get these protections across the finish line.
“The less protections we have at the federal level, the more we need to exercise every possible tool we have to protect our rights at the state and local level,” Hall said.
This is particularly of note in red and purple states, Hall said. Ballot measures, she added, are only bound to become more and more important for everyday people to effect change.
“This is an option for people,” Hall said. “I like to point to it more and more in times like this, of broader political despair, because people go ‘what can I do?’ And this is a great tool.”
For Ogle, source-of-income discrimination protections are key to helping low-income residents find stable housing, feel like there will be a way to fight injustice, and ultimately improve their economic situation.
“We’ve heard success stories about how [Section 8] helps people be able to just be stable and safe in their home, sometimes able to move off of the program,” Ogle said. “It is just so tragic that there are so many landlords who have refused to work with the housing authority and don’t want to take those housing vouchers even though it is a guaranteed payment from the government and on time.”
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