A construction worker frames in an apartment complex under construction in the Government Hill neighborhood in October. Redevelopment in many areas of San Antonio is making it more difficult for low-income renters to find affordable housing.
Josie Norris/Staff photographer
San Antonio Express-News
Madison Iszler, Staff writer
San Antonio’s public housing agency has a plan to make renters who use housing vouchers to offset the cost of rent more palatable to the city’s landlords: It’s offering a cash incentive.
Starting July 1, Opportunity Home San Antonio plans to give as much as $500 to property owners for each new lease they sign with a tenant who has a voucher. That’s on top of the guaranteed rent they would receive from the agency, which uses federal funds to cover much of the rent for such tenants, who pay about 30 percent of their income toward the monthly payment.
“They don’t have to do anything extra in order for us to pay out this extra $500,” said Stephanie Rodriguez, director of assisted housing programs.
It’s being done because residents with vouchers face multiple roadblocks to finding housing — and Texas does not prohibit discrimination against them. Currently, about 1,400 low-income families, retirees and disabled residents with vouchers are searching for homes.
Housing advocates hope the program can help reduce the backlog.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development calculates a fair market rent annually for vouchers in metropolitan areas, and that rent varies based on ZIP code and unit size. Housing authorities then figure out the maximum that they will pay for a voucher.
But rents have soared during much of the pandemic and there’s a shortage of affordable housing. Beyond supply and demand challenges, voucher holders may struggle to find transportation to visit an apartment complex or cash to pay a security deposit, Rodriguez said, or there may be a language barrier with a property owner.
Some landlords don’t understand how vouchers work, don’t want to deal with the bureaucracy of a government program or have negative perceptions of residents with vouchers. They worry their property value will go down or they’ll see an increase in crime, Rodriguez said.
“There’s a stigma that a person on Section 8 is not a good renter,” Rodriguez said, referring to the Housing Choice Voucher program that was begun in 1978. “But that is a stereotype and not necessarily always the case. With any renter, there could be the possibility of crime or them not paying their rent or not taking care of their unit. This is where we’re trying to do this incentive to say, 'Try out the residents.' You still enforce your lease, you still treat them like regular tenants, it’s just that part of the money is going to come from the housing authority.”
The problems are affecting voucher holders across the country.
Opportunity Home wants to “open (landlords’) eyes” to those who use the program: people with disabilities who are unable to work, retirees and families struggling to make ends meet. Over half of those the agency works with are on a fixed income and about 46 percent are families with children.
“These are your neighbors,” Rodriguez said.
People who apply for a voucher usually wait several years for their name to reach the top of the list and receive one. Opportunity Home typically opens its wait list every one or two years and will likely reopen it at the end of this year or early next year, Rodriguez said.
The agency determines an applicant’s eligibility and gives them a voucher, which allows them to search for a unit in the private market. Opportunity Home must approve the rent for a unit and it must pass an inspection. The landlord must sign a contract with the agency along with a lease with the tenant.
The idea to offer $500 stemmed from HUD’s decision during the pandemic to provide funds to housing authorities to incentivize landlords to rent to families with emergency housing vouchers, which worked well, Rodriguez said.
Opportunity Home aims to offer the incentive through July of next year — the end of its fiscal year — and then re-evaluate whether it is working and how much funding is available from HUD, Rodriguez said.
madison.iszler@express-news.net