Reader Responses to From Scholarship to Shelter

The student research on anti-discrimination laws to protect those using housing vouchers in “From Scholarship to Shelter” (Courses of Study, January-March) is about making the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program work for renters and landlords. As an advisor to the DISP, I can say students sought to understand both groups. Lawrence G. Proulx’s letter “Landlord’s Lament” (“What Do You Think?,” April/May) presents an opportunity to educate:

(1) Laws allow landlords to screen tenants based on rental history—just not based on their use of a voucher.

(2) HCVs serve the working poor, the elderly, and the disabled—less than 5 percent receive payments from the current “welfare” program, TANF.

(3) Households with a voucher pay rent set at 30 percent of their income; households without one may pay 50 to 70 percent. This makes voucher households more reliable rent payers (those without them may struggle) and, since they wait 2.5 years to get a HCV, they’re motivated to maintain it by meeting all obligations.

(4) Some landlords do not want HCV tenants because the unit must pass a basic housing quality inspection. In tight rental markets, landlords can collect rent without maintaining housing safety codes.

Your article about two students’ research work for organizations fighting to outlaw “housing discrimination” gives a clear picture of how the efforts of idealistic students can be harnessed by people with a political mission (“From Scholarship to Shelter,” Courses of Study, January/February ’20).  But nothing in the article suggests that the students were ever counseled by their teachers to examine whether there might be more than one side to the issues they have so enthusiastically taken positions on.  

One question that should have been addressed immediately is why landlords are reluctant to rent to tenants living on the dole — so reluctant, in fact, that the several organizations named in the article have made repeated attempts to have a law enacted that would force landlords to do so.  If I were a landlord, I would want to take every precaution I could to make sure that I would be paid on time, that my tenant would not create any difficulties, and that my property would be well treated and eventually relinquished to me in proper condition.  Any landlord who decides not to rent his property to someone is forgoing income, and common sense should suggest that people seldom forgo income without a good reason. 

The article gives no hint of such considerations.  Instead, the valiant students, acting under the unconsciously ironic title of Housing Justice, are aiding people  who wish to transfer the cost of their political goals to other parties.  And no one, it appears, has suggested to them that the likely result of such efforts will be to discourage people from renting out their property at all.