Public voices their opinion on ban on source of income discrimination
LEXINGTON, KY. (WTVQ) — As Lexington continues to combat the homelessness issue in the city, members of the KY Tenants, the Urban County Council and some landlords came together on Tuesday night for a special meeting, the main topic at the forefront, a ban on income discrimination.
“Banning source of income discrimination could mean that families will have more of a choice to live in neighborhoods where their children can better thrive and it also means that less resources have to be spent on social services doing the right thing also makes economic sense,” said Steve Katz a resident in Lexington who also came with the KY Tenants.
There are a lot of reasons to ban source of income discrimination, but they all come down to one thing to help people get and stay housed source of income discrimination, kneecaps. Otherwise excellent programs wasting tax dollars that should be housing. Our neighbors voucher programs like section eight often have three year waiting lists and then when you finally do get a voucher, no one takes it and this leads to homelessness,” added Casey Lyons, another resident in Lexington.
And while some are for it, others are concerned for what could come next.
“We have two options, make landlords take it or refine the system and make the landlords want to accept it. This includes incentives support reimbursement for destruction of property vetting potential voucher holders that so they would have a positive representation of the program and other ideas that landlords could put forth. The firsthand experience, section 8 has said it best that they don’t want this law passed because they ultimately want to work with landlords that want to work with them,” added Chris Johnson who works in real estate and is a landlord.
Zac Peterson also works in real estate, he says, “if we have to be forced to participate in a program that maybe we don’t want to then, you know, we’d have to look at possibly increasing rents to kind of make up for, just the delays in getting rent payments and whatnot.”
Currently more than 3,000 families receive housing choice vouchers and over 800 landlords participate according to the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Housing Authority.
“The real problem we’re facing is access to housing units that will accept that assistance. We urge you to consider the impact that a ban on income discrimination will provide to our community of survivors,” also said Alyssa Turk who represented Greenhouse 17.
The issue will be discussed again at the next council meeting.
