A San Antonio City Council stocked with progressives is moving ahead with plans to both reward landlords who take on new tenants paying with a housing voucher — and punish those who try to turn away veterans.
Texas law is clear about protecting a landlord’s ability to choose whether they want to rent to people paying with a voucher.
But it also allows cities to set some different rules at city-funded properties, as well as for veterans applying for housing within city limits.
San Antonio has already taken advantage of the former allowance to create more options for voucher recipients, and on Tuesday, started closing in on the latter.
The council’s Planning and Community Development Committee advanced a plan to ban landlords from rejecting veterans who want to pay their rent with a VA Supportive Housing (VASH) voucher, including escalating punishments for property owners who don’t comply.
“It’s a very narrow window the state gives us to add anti-discrimination efforts [to our strategic housing policies],” said Councilman Edward Mungia (D4), who chairs the committee. “It’s actually pretty rare that the state would give us that opportunity.”
At the same time, the committee also green-lit plans to offer $500 incentives for landlords who sign a new lease with a tenant using either a veterans housing voucher or a traditional housing voucher, commonly referred to as Section 8.
That idea is intended to get more landlords participating in a program that’s often stigmatized, and leaves voucher recipients competing over a relatively small pool of participating units.
“Sometimes when folks don’t know how to access a program, providing an incentive allows them to try and see what’s possible,” said Councilwoman Sukh Kaur (D1).
Both plans were approved unanimously by the committee and are now headed to the full council for a final vote.
“I think this is a package deal,” Mungia said of the two proposals. ” … There’s carrots and a stick.”
Record-high vacancies, yet vouchers go unused
Many landlords and property managers at Tuesday’s meeting stressed the added challenges that come with housing vouchers: Payments can be slow to start, plus working with the government entails added paperwork and inspections.
But council’s ideas come at a time when many property owners are also eager to fill empty units.
“The occupancy rate for apartments in our city is at 81% — the lowest it’s been in decades,” said Melissa Cabello Havrda, the chief government relations director at the San Antonio Apartment Association.
Against that backdrop, city staff has already been working with the apartment association and other landlord advocates to see how they can help reduce the burdens involved with federal housing vouchers.
They’ve worked to speed up the approval process, and even considered fronting money for the first few months of rent before the first voucher payment comes.
Still, said Neighborhood and Housing Services Assistant Director Veronica Gonzalez, “about 1,000 vouchers were unused in 2023 — meaning some families could not find a unit where the voucher could be used.
In a complex landscape, housing advocates say offering cash bonuses has been the easiest way to offset the landlords’ up-front challenges.
The city’s housing authority tried such a plan and said it was able to add 300 new landlords to their roster of those accepting vouchers — before federal funding constraints caused the program’s budget to dry up.
Last year Councilwoman Teri Castillo (D5) filed a council consideration request asking the city to take up where that program left off.
“Opportunity Home had a fund, and they saw great success,” Castillo said at a press conference outside City Hall on Tuesday morning. “However, they haven’t replenished that fund, so we have a responsibility [to help].”
While council members have overwhelmingly agreed, the city is also facing its own budget deficit that will test councilmembers’ commitment to the idea later this fall.
As of Tuesday, city staff said it plans to pull the $500,000 for landlord incentives from another popular housing program, the Resident Relocation Assistance Program, which helps cover moving costs for people facing financial hardships.
Some council members questioned that strategy at Tuesday’s meeting, but vowed to fight for funding both programs in the upcoming budget discussions this fall.
Veterans seek housing options closer to VA care
Meanwhile, the plan to start fining landlords who reject veterans’ housing vouchers has been a much more emotional topic.
Roughly two dozen people signed up to speak about the idea at Tuesday’s meeting, including veterans who want the city doing everything it can to help those who’ve served, and property managers who say the ordinance is a solution in search of a problem.
Like many progressive policy ideas moving through City Hall, the proposal started with an outside group that’s pushing similar ideas in other cities.
The American GI Forum got Fort Worth to approve a veterans housing ordinance in 2024, and though its efforts here once seemed to have hit a wall, it found an ally in Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones, an Air Force veteran who was elected in June.
VASH vouchers are aimed at veterans experiencing homelessness or who have very little income, and the city says it’s been able to match nearly all of the 830 residents currently holding such vouchers with housing.
But Jones and the veteran advocates contend that’s not the same as allowing them to choose where they want to live, which could be easier if all landlords had to accept their vouchers.
“We are so economically segregated in so many ways,” Jones said at her own press conference last Tuesday, in which she pointed to a map of the city’s VA health clinics located primarily on the North Side.
“The map tells the story, which is why it’s so important that we let these veterans take that voucher, and get that housing where they want to live.”
After some initial skepticism, the council committee agreed to a plan Tuesday that would only apply to landlords who own five or more rental properties.
“If you own one unit that you’re renting, you may not be able to afford a three-month gap [in rent payment],” said Kaur, who proposed the amendment to Jones’ policy. “But if you own several, you can probably take that hit, because it’s a business now.”
The council members haven’t yet hammered out the details of how they’ll assess fines or other punishments for those who don’t comply.
