KY lawmaker wants discrimination law to protect tenants who use vouchers to pay rent

A lawmaker from Lexington wants the state’s housing discrimination law to protect Kentucky tenants who use government housing vouchers, private income assistance, child support, alimony and other benefits to pay their bills, rather than just a traditional salary.

House Bill 437 would add “sources of income” to the categories that are protected from discrimination under Kentucky housing law, alongside race, color, religion, sex, familial status, disability and national origin. The city of Louisville has some similar protections in place, but the rest of the state does not.

The Herald-Leader reported in October that real-estate investors have purchased hundreds of homes in Lexington’s working-class neighborhoods over the last few years, taking advantage of low interest rates.

The investors often raise rents considerably while refusing to accept federal Section 8 housing vouchers for low-income tenants, gentrifying some of the city’s oldest neighborhoods east and north of downtown, the newspaper found.

“It’s simply not fair that landlords can pick and choose which income sources they want to honor,” the bill’s sponsor, Democratic Rep. Lamin Swann, said Monday at a news conference in downtown Lexington with several members of the advocacy group KY Tenants.

“No one should be denied housing for these reasons,” Swann said, “because this money is no different or less secure than what someone may receive through their job.”

However, Swann’s bill is unlikely to become law this year.

The freshman representative filed his bill Feb. 21 with four Democratic co-sponsors from Lexington, Louisville and Northern Kentucky, but it hasn’t even been assigned to a House committee for consideration with 10 days remaining in the legislative session.

House Republican leaders did not respond Monday to a request for comment on Swann’s bill.

“I’m crossing my fingers,” Swann said at the news conference. “Hopefully this week, something will move.”

Davita Gatewood of Lexington, a KY Tenants member who stood with Swann on Monday, said she spent nine months searching for housing because landlords refused to accept her Section 8 voucher, also known as Housing Choice. At the bottom of many ads were the words “NO SECTION 8,” all in capital letters, she said.

“They were discriminating because they might have had a bad experience with someone who used a voucher, or they might heard of a bad experience with someone who used a voucher, and so they’ve decided they’re going to hold it against the entire group,” Gatewood said.

In Lexington’s East End, where she grew up, modest houses that once sold for $84,000 now easily fetch $300,000, making home ownership impossible for many, Gatewood said. Her own three sons, away at college, have ruled out returning to Lexington because the city no longer is affordable, she said. Louisville and Cincinnati, although they are larger cities, offer cheaper housing, she said.

Once you can’t buy a home anymore, and renting a home becomes too difficult because of income discrimination, then Lexington has all but evicted families who held neighborhoods together for generations, Gatewood said.

“It’s very cruel,” Gatewood said. “The families are broken up. The sense of community is gone.”