County Creates Housing Voucher to Landlord Pipeline

Houses on the 2900 block of S. 11th St. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

What started as an effort to curb housing voucher discrimination has become a government-managed pipeline for people with vouchers to find housing.

Now, the county will find out if it works.

The county’s Housing Division is launching the Landlords Incentives Fostering Tenancy (LIFT) program this month. It will offer landlords that rent to county residents using Section 8 housing vouchers access to a pool of funding to repair any damage the tenant causes in the unit.

Section 8 housing vouchers guarantee recipients do not have to spend more than 30-40% of their income on rent. The federal government pays the difference.

The idea for the program came out of county board discussions about enforcing a 2018 ban on housing voucher discrimination. Despite having it on the books, the ordinance has been ineffective, lacking an adequate mechanism or infrastructure for enforcement.

During these discussions, housing officials told the board that a survey by an association representing landlords found that concern about tenant damage is among the primary reasons local landlords are hesitant to accept Section 8 tenants. Housing officials have said there is no evidence to suggest Section 8 tenants cause more damage than tenants without vouchers. But, with an extremely competitive local housing market, officials are interested in any program that would give them an edge when placing clients in housing.

The county’s Housing Division is located within the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and it is primarily focused on tackling street homelessness. It already uses the vouchers to place clients in emergency and long term housing.

Sup. Shawn Rolland sponsored the resolution creating the LIFT program and the board passed it in March. Later this month, the board will vote on the parameters and conditions the Housing Division has created for the program.

“We can’t be the healthiest county in Wisconsin if we try to do it on our own. We need great partners, and that’s especially true in housing,” Rolland told Urban Milwaukee in a statement. “If we can encourage more landlords to choose people-in-need as tenants by offering them strong financial incentives, we can reduce homelessness, and help people-in-need to build a healthy life.”

Benefits for landlords that join the program include up to three months of rent for any damages and up to one month for a loss of rent due to unexpected vacancy. Additionally, tenants of landlords in the program will have access to the county’s wraparound services and case managers, and landlords will have access to administrative support from the housing division, Alexi Millard, landlord engagement coordinator, told supervisors on the Committee on Health Equity, Human Needs and Strategic Planning.

To join the program, landlords must sign a membership agreement, which requires them to verify the unit is up to code, complete a program orientation and adhere to all fair housing related laws and regulations. The county will not reimburse landlords for any damage that occurred prior to joining the program.

If the board approves the program parameters this month, it will begin with a retroactive starting date at the beginning of June.

The division keeps a list of landlords that accept placements for clients with Section 8 housing vouchers. If at the end of the year that list has grown, officials said they will view LIFT as a success.

The fund is being seeded with $356,000 from the a rainy day county fund. The committee unanimously approved the proposal.