1. Some of the poorest ZIP codes in Montgomery County, mainly in Dayton, have the highest number of rental units being paid for with federal housing vouchers, even though the Section 8 voucher program is designed to give low-income people greater choices about where to live. This undermines a major goal of the Section 8 program to deconcentrate poverty.
2. Finding a landlord in the suburbs that accepts Section 8 vouchers is a challenge for people in the program. Investigations by the Miami Valley Fair Housing Center have found higher rates of source of income discrimination in communities outside of the city of Dayton. The Dayton Daily News called more than a dozen apartment complexes in Kettering, Centerville, Huber Heights, Vandalia and Fairborn, and all of them said they do not accept Section 8 vouchers.
3. Some are concerned that a Dayton city ordinance requiring landlords to accept Section 8 threatens to concentrate poverty further in the city if there is no similar protection in the suburbs.
4. A state bill introduced this month would prohibit landlords across Ohio from turning down a rental application based solely on the renter using public assistance such as a federal housing voucher to pay rent.
5. Landlords say the reason many housing providers won’t accept Section 8 is that the program has too much red tape. One of the main problems is that the required inspections do not occur in a timely manner and landlords do not receive rental income until those inspections are complete, they say, and the best way to incentivize housing providers to accept housing vouchers would be to fix a broken system that has far too many inefficiencies and a problem-riddled process.
Read key findings from other Dayton Daily News investigations
» VineBrook Home, one of region’s largest landlords
» Child care crisis in the Dayton region
» Train safety in light of multiple Ohio derailments
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