By Ben Christopher
Should California landlords be required to rent to tenants with federal housing vouchers?
They are under state law, but a Sacramento-based property manager is contesting that requirement in court with what has become a common legal refrain in challenges to such laws across the country.
The Housing Choice Voucher Program, often dubbed “Section 8,” helps low-income renters cover a portion of their rent on the private housing market.
(That is, it helps renters lucky enough to snag one; the program has never had enough funding to cover more than a fraction of all the households that qualify.)
Since 2020, California has banned landlords from refusing to rent to voucher holders. In the years since, the state has seen a wave of civil rights lawsuits by tenant rights groups, who often hire “testers” to pose as Section 8 holders and surreptitiously record the denials they receive. In mid-July, a nonprofit watchdog group accused Greystar, the largest apartment landlord in the U.S., of systemically refusing to rent to voucher holders across the country — including in California.
Fourteen other states and Washington D.C. explicitly ban Section 8 discrimination by landlords.
Now, one property manager is fighting back.
Last week, Tower Bridge Property Management, which manages roughly 300 rental units around the Sacramento region, and its owner Tom Manning, sued the state for violating a right often evoked by criminal defendants.
Landlords who accept voucher payments are first required to have each unit inspected for health and safety violations by local housing authorities. They’re also required to provide paperwork to local and federal authorities. Both requirements violate property manager and landlord’s Fourth Amendment rights to be “free from unreasonable searches,” the lawsuit argues.
Earlier this year, a state appeals court in New York accepted a similar argument in striking down the state’s anti-Section 8 discrimination rule, while a conservative legal nonprofit in Virginia made a similar challenge there.
Manning is being represented by the libertarian Pacific Legal Foundation, which has also represented homeowners challenging impact fees and inclusionary zoning rules in California.
