Board Wants Solution to Housing Voucher Discrimination

Houses on S. Howell Ave. in Bay View. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

The Milwaukee County Board made a formal request last Thursday for county officials to develop strategies — including both incentives and enforcement — the county can use to take on Section 8 housing voucher discrimination.

Sup. Shawn Rolland‘s resolution requests officials from the Housing Division, and any other requisite department, develop potential strategies for incentivizing landlords to accept Section 8 housing vouchers, used by people and families making 50% or less of the area’s median income to pay for private housing. Why incentives? Because the county’s system for enforcing a ban on voucher discrimination doesn’t work and court rulings may have legally invalidated the county’s ability to enforce it to begin with.

“If penalties are off the table or not workable,” Rolland said, “We should look at incentives.”

Earlier in July, the board’s Committee on Health Equity, Human Needs and Strategic Planning recommended rejecting Rolland’s resolution after hearing from housing advocates that were concerned the county was giving up on enforcement. On July 24, the full board overruled the committee on a 14-4 vote, with Deanna Alexander, Tony Staskunas, Patti Logsdon and Steve Taylor in opposition.

The county has a 2018 ordinance that forbids housing voucher discrimination and even sketches out a process for reporting and potential legal action. The problem is that, according to the county’s Office of Corporation Counsel (OCC), zero county residents have filed a report of discrimination to the county.

Rolland called the county’s system “onerous” because it requires a “verified complaint” to be filed with OCC. But finding a notary public to verify a complaint and then pursuing a case through the courts has proven too difficult for poor county residents facing housing voucher discrimination, so nothing is happening.

The county’s chief attorney, Corporation Counsel Margaret Daun, told the board that she’s long had concerns with enforcement of the ordinance. “Back in 2018, I provided prior advice that enforcement powers as to the county, both in terms of monetary penalties or bringing landlords into a courts system to try to compel through an injunction or other similar tool, appeared dubious under state law,” said Daun on July 24.

Daun explained that the county does not enjoy “home rule constitutional assumptions” and therefore the county board’s only powers and authority are those specifically enumerated in state law. “While the county has a broad mandate on housing, creating an additional enforcement mechanism is questionable,” Daun said.

OCC is working to draft an official opinion on the county’s enforcement abilities. Supervisors can also request an opinion from the Wisconsin Attorney General’s Office.

“Finally and perhaps most importantly, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that even under federal housing guidelines, Section 8 vouchers are not considered a lawful source of income,” Daun said.

This definition of lawful income is important to protection under housing discrimination laws.

“So we have what I would suggest is a massive regulatory problem, a regulatory gap, which is, the feds aren’t enforcing that, they don’t think it counts,” Daun said. “Neither is the state.”

Daun also asked supervisors to consider the infrastructure necessary to actually “engage in a meaningful enforcement program,” noting that fining or suing a few landlords would be a slow and ineffective way to make systemic change.

“An enforcement mechanism to improve housing access in the county would have to have a far-reaching, consistent, broad and expansive application of the anti-discrimination provision,” Daun said. “Simply put, it would require investigators, attorneys, completely dedicated to doing nothing but this; you can imagine the budget numbers.”

The county board has a long history of questioning and dismissing their own attorney’s legal opinions and caution. Daun asked the body to remember that OCC legal opinions are not a statement of a political viewpoint on behalf of the office.

“That’s not to say that Section 8 discrimination doesn’t happen. It does. That’s not to say it should. It should not. That’s not to say that Section 8 discrimination isn’t a proxy for racial and family-status discrimination. It is,” Daun said.

Clancy Amendment

Sup. Ryan Clancy successfully amended the resolution at the full board meeting, despite that the same amendment failed at the committee meeting.

Clancy’s amendment stripped all the language referencing the legal challenges spelled out by Daun, language pointing out that the county’s current system has yielded zero complaints and clauses questioning the effectiveness of the county’s current system of enforcement. It added language asking the same county agencies working on incentives to also work on ways to “compel” landlords to accept housing vouchers.

Rolland reiterated support for Clancy’s amendment, as he supported it at committee, stating that having the county’s subject matter experts develop strategies for the board to consider was his priority, not the language in the resolution.