For low-income tenants, HOA restrictions drive racial housing segregation

When Danielle Ross moved to Arlington from Michigan in 2016, she was in search of a better life for her and her children. As a single mom of six children — now seven, with her youngest, Sevyn, born in November — her job at Bank of America wasn’t enough to allow Ross to save to purchase a home yet.

She’d never received public assistance before, but on the advice of a few co-workers who knew her situation, she decided to look into the Section 8 Voucher Choice Program. She got approved and settled into a home in Providence Village three years ago.

“I was skeptical because I didn’t know a lot about Texas, but my Realtor said it was very quiet, it had good schools,” Ross said.

Authorized by Congress in 1974 and developed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the voucher program was meant to provide new opportunities for families who had been relegated to inner-city projects — areas of high crime and high poverty. With Black, Native American and Hispanic households most likely to be extremely low-income renters, the introduction of the voucher program would, in theory, desegregate housing and give families like Ross’ a chance to find homes in suburban neighborhoods with well-funded schools and lower crime rates.

But for Ross, who now lives in a hotel while she looks for new housing, the promises of the program have fallen flat.

While the federal government sought to provide new options for low-income renters, homeowners associations, which gained popularity in the early 1960s, were waging their own battles. Early HOAs implemented deed restrictions to prevent Black buyers and renters from settling in their neighborhoods. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 later outlawed discrimination based on race, but not source of income — meaning Section 8 housing bans like the one passed by Providence Homeowners Association this past month could still keep out Black residents.

“We don’t see language like that today, but language that restricts the property owners’ ability to lease to someone who receives rental assistance has a disparate impact on families of color, particularly African American families, so it has the same effect,” said Ann Lott, executive director of Dallas-based Inclusive Communities Project, which helps place voucher families in suburban neighborhoods.

Passed June 6, the ban in Providence Village would fine landlords with Section 8 tenants $300 weekly as long as they housed tenants with vouchers, including those with current leases. One hundred and fifty-seven households with as many as 680 residents — more than 90% Black — would be displaced. The association faced pushback from property managers who hired a local attorney to fight the ban, as well as state advocacy groups that petitioned the Department of Justice to investigate the leasing rules.

In a reversal, the association announced last week they would allow tenants to finish their leases of no more than a year and gave month-to-month renters until September to vacate.

For Ross and her family, it was already too late.

“We were forced to move because my lease expired May 31, and the owners said they were not going to renew my lease,” Ross said. “I’ve been in a hotel with my kids since June 3rd.”

Ross said her landlord didn’t give her a reason they would not renew, but she’s sure it was in light of the new rules.

‘The new N-word’

Homeowners associations are as popular today as during their rise 60 years ago. Over 80% of homes in new subdivisions are part of HOAs, and the boards, often majority white and Asian American, have broad rulemaking powers. Fines as high as $200-$300 per week are common for violations, and the associations can even foreclose on the houses of noncompliant members.

For renters with vouchers, unfriendly HOAs can make the hunt for a home even more difficult.

With the rental market in Dallas-Fort Worth already seeing over 90% occupancy, landlords don’t have much incentive to rent to voucher holders. Housing authorities are required to perform property inspections before a tenant with a voucher can move in, and the rental process takes longer than in the private market. Landlords often want to avoid the bureaucracy.

“There really needs to be a complete overhaul of the Section 8 program to make it more streamlined and put the power in the hands of the voucher holders,” Lott said.

Some states have outlawed discrimination against voucher holders, but Texas passed a law in 2015 protecting landlords’ ability to deny renting to would-be tenants based on their source of income. A 2020 Inclusive Communities Project survey found that 93% of landlords in Denton, Dallas, Collin and Rockwall counties would not accept vouchers, and according to a study by the University of Texas at Austin, whiter areas were the most likely to refuse Section 8 tenants.

“Section 8 equals Black — it’s the new N-word,” Lott said. “We’re finding it harder and harder to find units available to families who need a voucher.”

Among the 1,153 voucher families placed in Denton County by the Dallas Housing Authority, 1,006 — 87% — are Black. Fifty-nine percent of voucher program participants through the Denton Housing Authority are Black, with 39% white.

Relocation typically takes 30-60 days, said Sherri Dade, executive director of the Denton Housing Authority. But now it takes more like 60-90. Exclusionary zoning laws also can limit construction of multifamily units, leaving families with few options outside of housing concentrated in high-poverty neighborhoods.

If renters with vouchers don’t find housing within 60 days, they stand to lose them. In Houston, 1 in 4 Section 8 households cannot use their vouchers because they cannot find landlords who will accept them, according to The Texas Tribune.

It’s something Ross is experiencing for the second time.

“When I applied for Section 8, I couldn’t find housing in Arlington, so they kind of pushed me out into the McKinney area,” Ross said.

Although the area meant better educational opportunities for her kids, Ross said she never fully felt comfortable in Providence Village.

“When I first moved there, I had a neighbor put her number in my mailbox to inform me about a Black man who she said had a criminal record and roamed the neighborhood,” Ross said. “No one was going to come say anything racial to your face unless it’s a heated argument, but there was a lot of stuff like that — it just left a bad taste in my mouth.”

As she saw increased diversity in the neighborhood, Ross said she heard more racially charged comments associating things as mundane as untidy lawns with voucher families. One afternoon, her son had an asthma attack while playing outside. Neighbors called Child Protective Services instead of alerting Ross, who was inside at the time, she said.

“It was hurtful, but I didn’t want to keep bouncing my kids place to place,” Ross said. “I was the type that thought if I just tried to keep my head down, keep my kids quiet, we’d be invisible.”

Residents say crime, not race, behind leasing rules

Homeowners in support of the voucher ban, including homeowners of color, say it isn’t racial — it’s about keeping crime out of their neighborhoods and protecting their investments. They point to an uptick in criminal activity, such as a shooting confrontation and a playground fire earlier this month, which they have alleged are linked to renters with vouchers.

The Aubrey Police Department, however, could not confirm links to voucher holders.

“We have no way of knowing who is Section 8 and who isn’t, nor do we look into it after any events,” Aubrey police Lt. David Bruce told the Denton Record-Chronicle. “It just doesn’t come into play. It’s not information that’s provided to us. It’s not information that we want. It doesn’t matter.”

Lott said the argument is one her organization hears often.

“If you have a bad tenant, a property landlord can take measures to address any kind of lease violation with an individual household. Why is everybody with a Section 8 voucher being targeted?” Lott said.

The Denton and Dallas housing authorities both require background checks for voucher applicants, and certain convictions automatically disqualify renters from participating in the program.

Whether bans like the one in Providence Village are racially charged or not, Lott said there’s no denying that they have a disproportional impact on Black renters and could derail progress made on housing desegregation in the past few decades.

“We’re going to start seeing a concentration of voucher holders back in some of the inner-city areas with the highest poverty rate, the highest minority concentration, because the suburban areas that tend to have HOAs are going to be off-limits for them,” Lott said. “If Providence succeeds with this measure, there are going to be other HOAs that will try to enact similar changes in their bylaws, and that’s why we’re really going to fight this.”

The Inclusive Communities Project has been working with other state groups to coordinate with HUD following the Providence Village ban.

Ross has requested a transfer to Dallas and now spends her hours outside of work calling landlords to try to arrange other housing. She doesn’t want to go back to Michigan, but in North Texas, she fears the chances of finding a safe, welcoming home are dwindling.

“I want my kids to feel comfortable and safe,” Ross said. “I don’t even know if I want to relocate out of Texas — I really just don’t know what to do.”