LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Kentucky lawmakers are a step closer to invalidating local laws in Louisville and Lexington which prohibit landlords from discriminating against tenants using federal housing assistance, such as Section 8 vouchers.
House Bill 18 passed the Senate on Tuesday evening. If the House concurs with the bill by the end of March, Republicans will have time to override a possible veto of the legislation by Gov. Andy Beshear.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Kentucky Republicans advance bill ensuring landlords can refuse Section 8 tenants
The bill seeks to overturn a Louisville Metro ordinance that passed unanimously in 2020 and a similar law that recently passed Lexington-Fayette County's council. The Democrat-led city-county governments prohibited landlords in their jurisdictions from discriminating based on a potential tenant’s “lawful source of income.”
Republicans in Frankfort have said Louisville and Lexington are forcing landlords to accept Section 8 tenants, along with below-market rents — an unfair seizing of private property rights.
“In cities across America, left-wing liberals on city councils are trying to force landlords into taking below-market (rents), and I’m not gonna stand for it,” said Sen. Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown.
But supporters of the ordinances say they merely prevent landlords from making blanket determinations that they don’t accept Section 8 tenants, which is not tantamount to being forced to accept such tenants. Landlords remain free to set rents or security deposits higher than a Section 8 tenant can afford and to refuse to fix up their property to meet Section 8 inspection standards, for example.
“No landlord is required to change those criteria or their properties because of Louisville’s source of income ordinance, and repeated assertions to the contrary in Frankfort are simply false,” retired Louisville councilman Bill Hollander wrote in an op-ed last month.
In the three years since Louisville’s ordinance took effect, 42 of the 134 housing discrimination complaints received by Metro government were related to the “source of income” provision, according to records of the Metro Human Relations Commission disclosed to WDRB News via a public records request.
In 12 of those cases, the commission reached a “conciliation agreement” with the landlord. The remainder of the income-discrimination complaints were either determined not to have merit, withdrawn or are pending investigation, according to commission records.
