Iowa law allows landlords to reject voucher holders just because they use a voucher. This kind of housing discrimination is illegal many other states.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
Stephanie Quinn was at work when her kids, 10 and 12, received a paper notice from their landlord informing them that the family wouldn't be offered a new lease on their three-bedroom apartment in Farley, Iowa.
A 43-year-old mother of two, Quinn had 30 days to move out of the place she and her kids had called home for five years. The family has spent the last nearly two months staying with Quinn's boyfriend in his one-bedroom apartment, so that the kids can finish out their school year. But the living arrangement isn't sustainable, and Quinn has a looming deadline to find a new home.
That deadline — July 11 — is imposed by the state housing authority and applies to Quinn's Section 8 housing choice voucher, which she's had for about 12 years. Quinn suffers from Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, which affects her motor and sensory nerves, compromising her mobility in her arms and legs. Though she receives about $1,000 per month in social security disability insurance, she also works at a local Subway sandwich shop to make ends meet.
If Quinn doesn't find a new apartment with a landlord who will accept her voucher before July 11, she'll lose the crucial housing benefit, according to paperwork she received from the housing authority, which Business Insider reviewed. With the voucher, Quinn paid up to about $250 of her $875 rent each month, as the program requires tenants to spend no more than 40% of their income on rent. If she loses her voucher, it would likely take years to get another.
"I'd have to go back on waiting lists, and I'm actually on a whole bunch of other waiting lists for income-based places, too, and they're about five years away," Quinn told Business Insider.
Quinn says she's contacted close to 30 landlords since March. Many have simply told her they don't accept housing vouchers. In 17 states and Washington, DC, turning an applicant down solely because they have a voucher is illegal — the practice is known as "source-of-income discrimination."
But in Iowa, the practice is allowed. In 2021, the state passed a law barring cities and counties from protecting voucher holders from overt discrimination by landlords.
Quinn received a list of apartment options from the local housing authority, but the listings are mostly outdated. So she's turned to looking for rental listings on Zillow, Trulia, and even Facebook and Craigslist. But when she's inquired with these landlords and informed them that she has a voucher, they've largely rejected her outright.
"It was a complete 'no' right away and 'no we don't do that, no we don't accept it,'" she said. "If it wasn't on the housing list, I pretty much got a no."
Quinn has found a few property owners who say they'll take her voucher, but they're almost an hour away from Farley and Quinn needs to stay in the area to keep her kids enrolled in their school.
Once school lets out for summer break, Quinn's kids will move in with a close friend in Dubuque until Quinn can find a new apartment. If she doesn't find a new home in the area before July, she's worried she'll have to temporarily put her kids in foster care so they can continue attending their school.
Quinn is also concerned she won't live close enough to her 83-year-old grandmother, who she's the sole caretaker for. And she fears having to give up her job. The managers at her Subway shop have been very accommodating of her needs, purchasing special knives she can use and exempting her from finding replacements to take her shift when she's out sick.
"I'm so upset that if I can't find something nearby, I have to leave this job," she said.
The federal Housing Choice Voucher Program is the biggest — and most effective — American housing assistance program. It aids about 5 million people in 2.3 million households who make less than 50% of their area median income to find rental housing on the private market. But a declining number of landlords across the US are accepting the vouchers, and a growing number of recipients are failing to secure housing through the program, Business Insider recently reported.
At the same time, the program is severely underfunded. Quinn is among the one in four eligible Americans who actually receive a voucher. And the average wait time for recipients is two and a half years. About 10 million additional low-income households are going without the help they qualify for.
Like Quinn, many voucher holders struggle to find a home that meets the program's requirements and a landlord willing to accept the applicant within the limited time — as short as 60 days — allotted to find a unit. Nationwide, only about 60% of voucher recipients are successful in finding a home with the subsidy.
Housing experts have found that the home inspection process is a major pain point in the program. Before a voucher recipient can sign a lease on a home, it must be inspected by the local housing authority to make sure it meets a slew of health and safety standards. But that process can create lengthy delays, cause landlords to keep a unit empty and miss out on rent payments, and ultimately result in the voucher holder losing out on the home.
But before a voucher recipient can even get to the inspection process, they need to find a suitable home that will take a voucher. Many landlords reject voucher holders even in places where source-of-income discrimination is illegal.
The deck is even more stacked against low-income people in a state like Iowa.
Quinn hopes her story will help others in even worse situations. "I've got a good family support system, and I know a lot of people don't have that," she said.
Are you a housing voucher recipient or a landlord who's struggled with the housing voucher program? Reach out to this reporter at erelman@businessinsider.com.
