SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — A housing watchdog group, Housing Rights Initiative (HRI), said its sweeping undercover investigation exposed landlords around Oakland who illegally thwarted prospective renters who use Housing Choice Vouchers, also known as Section 8.
On Wednesday, HRI filed housing discrimination cases targeting 62 real estate agents, brokerage firms, and landlords in Oakland and across California. HRI said the group compiled evidence showing low-income prospective tenants were discriminated against, in violation of state law.
“Real estate companies can’t slam the door in the face of low-income families in California,” HRI wrote.
The watchdog group submitted 21 complaints to the California Civil Rights Department. HRI is represented by law firms Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, Handley Farah & Anderson, and Inner City Law Center.
HRI said it trained, equipped, and deployed an “army of undercover investigators” who posed as prospective tenants with Section 8 vouchers and other forms of subsidy, like Flex Pool, last year. They contacted hundreds of brokers and landlords by phone call and text message to determine whether they were complying with California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act law.
In one example, the watchdog group shared screen grabs of communications with a real estate agent inquiring about an apartment on Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Oakland.
The undercover investigator wrote, “Any word back about me using my flex pool voucher here?” The agent replied, “Sorry I meant to get back to you. The owner has chose not to accept.”
The investigator wrote, “Ah ok, so I wouldn’t be able to use my voucher?” The agent answered, “No, this is owners request.”
San Francisco Bay Area rent prices are infamously sky-high compared to the rest of the country. Vouchers were created to help struggling low-income families keep a roof over their heads.
In 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom signed an amendment to FEHA making it illegal to discriminate against rental home applicants seeking to utilize a government subsidy voucher to help pay their rent.
Bay Area housing authority officials explained, “California amended the Fair Employment and Housing Act to include ‘source of income’ as a form of discrimination, which means landlords cannot reject a participant solely because they are using tenant-based rental assistance. Since this is a new law, tenants and landlords may be unfamiliar with it with what is types of activities are now considered now illegal.”
Officials said the following are common examples of Section 8 discrimination:
Rental advertisements containing phrases such as “No Section 8”
Requiring minimum income levels
“It has been more than five years since source of income discrimination became illegal in California, yet HRI’s investigation has once again revealed the persistence of discriminatory practices by rental housing providers and real estate businesses across this state,” Alice Zakaryan, an attorney at Inner City Law Center, wrote in a statement. “This filing is necessary to push against the notion that these corporate businesses will get away with such insidiousness.”
Tenants who encounter discrimination can submit complaints to the State of California by calling 1-800-884-1684 or go to the California Civil Rights Department’s website.
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