In the city of Lincoln, and across the state of Nebraska, landlords can legally discriminate against tenants who would pay rent via disability, Social Security, rent assistance, or housing vouchers. A local group is fighting to change that.
Monday afternoon, the bloc organization Collective Impact Lincoln (the partnership of Civic Nebraska and Nebraska Appleseed) presented the Coalition for Source of Income Protections in Housing and delivered a petition with over 520 signatures to the Lincoln City Council, calling on them to pass source-of-income protections in local housing, making it illegal for landlords to refuse tenants based solely on their income to pay rent coming from one of these sources.
“Allowing source-of-income discrimination gives landlords leeway to decide what sort of tenants live in their apartments. This can sometimes result in source-of-income discrimination being used as a proxy for other prohibited forms of discrimination,” Kasey Ogle, Collective Impact Lincoln’s senior staff attorney, told KLIN News. “We’ve heard of landlords refusing to rent to voucher holders in certain neighborhoods, but accepting them in other neighborhoods. This can contribute to class and race segregation within our community.”
When asked what landlords proport to be the issue with these protections, Ogle said, “Landlords might say that it’s more difficult to work with. For example, if you use a housing voucher that comes from the Lincoln Housing Authority, that’s a program run by the federal government. There livability standards that a landlord must meet to participate in the program. We might often hear that those requirements are difficult to comply with, too costly an administrative burden, and not worth the effort.”
The signature delivery served as a kickoff for the coalition’s Turned Away campaign, aiming to compel the City Council to pass source-of-income protections in early 2024. Legislation banning source-of-income discrimination has been passed in 23 states and 134 cities.
What was the City Councils reaction to this petition?
“They were very curious,” said Ogle, “They asked a lot of good questions, really trying to get at the heart of the issue. They seem willing to consider and understand how they can best create a policy for Lincolnites to ensure that they address both the lack of source-of-income protections and what those protections might mean for landlords moving forward.”
According to Collective Impact, local housing voucher success rates are about 74%, meaning more than 1 in 4 voucher recipients are unsuccessful in finding housing that will accept vouchers.
For more information, visit civicnebraska.org.