Despite a 2020 law that outlawed discrimination against recipients of housing subsidies such as Section 8 in California, a review by IBT of Northern California rentals posted to Craigslist found that more than four years later, blatant violations of the law remain commonplace.
While California has some of the strongest tenant protections in the nation, until SB 329 took effect on January 1, 2020, with the exception of a few local ordinances, it was perfectly legal for landlords to reject applications from renters just because of their use of the federal Section 8 housing subsidy.
Source of income discrimination, as the mechanism is formally known, exacerbates the already arduous process of receiving housing subsidies, as Section 8 recipients typically have just 60 days to make use of their vouchers, and that 60 day deadline comes after most applicants spend years on their city or county’s Section 8 waitlist. A study in Los Angeles prior to the city’s 2019 ban on Section 8 discrimination found that 53% of voucher recipients were unable to sign a lease in time to use their subsidy, while 76.4% of Los Angeles landlords did not accept Section 8.
While Section 8 — also referred to as the Housing Choice Voucher program — is a federal program governed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, cities and counties are left to manage the distribution of the actual vouchers. And in California, where the housing shortage is particularly acute, this has led to devastating results.
Oakland, as the largest city in Alameda County, administers its own Section 8 program separate from the county. The city most recently opened its waitlist to applicants in 2023, a 12-year gap from its prior opening. More than 300 people remained on the list from the last opening in 2011. And, as IBT’s data shows, despite the passage of SB 329 and additional legislation to strengthen the ban on source of income discrimination, moving off the waitlist only presents new problems for Section 8 recipients.
Craigslist might look outdated, but it remains the go-to site for many seeking a new place to live in California. One of its major advantages over sleeker, more modern competitors like Apartments.com and Zillow is Craigslist search feature, which allows prospective renters to search the actual text description of listings.
At the time of IBT’s research on the topic, there were more than 10,000 posts to the Bay Area section of Craigslist. Just 332 of those listings mentioned the term “Section 8”, a rate of less than 4%. And of those 332, nearly 8% flagrantly violate the state’s source of income protections.
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To be clear, many of these are well-within the letter of the law, clearly stating “Section 8 accepted” or similar terms. However, a significant portion of listings are in clear violation of the state’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), stating in no uncertain terms messages like “no section 8.” The Peninsula and East Bay regions were the most egregious, with 18.8% and 11.1% of their listings that mentioned Section 8 stating that those using the voucher program need not apply.
As a point of comparison, IBT also checked Sacramento’s Craigslist housing listings. While at first glance the state’s capital appeared to be far more compliant with the law, with just four listings banning the use of Section 8, upon closer examination, it became obvious that 100 of the 127 listings mentioning Section 8 were duplicates posted by the same three apartment complexes.1 Adjusting for these repeat postings meant that four of the 27 rentals in Sacramento to mention Section 8 refused to accept the vouchers, a rate of 14.8%.
The state legislature carved a limited exception to its ban on Section 8 discrimination, exempting landlords who reside in their property and rent out a single room in the unit. While it is impossible to be sure if a rental is owner-occupied just from a Craigslist posting, if IBT had any doubt about the listing’s possible exemption from FEHA’s source of income laws, the rental was not included in the analysis.
Similarly, listings that used language like “Section 8 considered” were not included in the final data. This style of phrasing is not technically discriminatory but could reasonably be construed as “advertising a preference for tenants with certain sources of income,” a practice clearly prohibited by the state.
Violations of FEHA, including refusal to rent to Section 8 recipients, are generally the responsibility of the state’s Civil Rights Department.2 The CRD has the ability to send fair housing testers to pose as potential applicants, documenting the illegal source of income and leading to financial penalties, including compensation for renters who were discriminated against.
However, it took CRD three years to file its first source of income lawsuit, while an investigation in the North Bay city of Novato lasted for more than two years. For voucher recipients facing down a 60-day clock to use or lose their subsidy, that’s far too long.
Public housing, which is a separate program, albeit with similar eligibility criteria, is of little help for low-income renters stymied discriminatory landlords.
Article 34, which was passed in 1950 at the onset of white flight and racist fears of urban diversification, essentially outlawed the expansion of public housing projects in California. Voters will have a fourth opportunity — and first this century — to repeal Article 34 this November, but for now, wait times for public housing in California’s most populated counties remain as long or longer as those for Section 8.
A more immediate and arguably more practical solution to the continued violations of SB 329 would be to drastically staff up the CRD such that it can quickly respond to reports of housing discrimination. But with California facing a budget deficit and a yet another shortsighted ballot measure heavily constricting the financial options available to the state, it appears that CRD will actually see its funding reduced for the years ahead.
In the meantime, those fortunate enough to make it off of winding Section 8 waitlists are forced to reckon with discriminatory landlords, operating with near-total impunity, and the Bay Area housing market remains untenable.
A 2023 study from the Economic Policy Institute found that Bay Area housing is so expensive as to necessitate a separate tier. Of the nation’s three Very Very Very High Cost of Living counties, two are in the Bay. Without Section 8 and public housing to close the gap, low-income workers will continue to be pushed out of the Bay Area. Enforcing the anti-discrimination laws already on the books is a simple way to start fighting back.
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1
There is no fee to post apartment rentals to Craigslist in California, so duplicates are common. However, the amount of duplicate listings seen in Sacramento was egregious, hence the stricter scrutiny.
2
The CRD was known as the Department of Fair Employment and Housing until 2014.
