Do Elmhurst Landlords Discriminate Against Voucher Holders?

ELMHURST, IL — Compared to other towns, few Elmhurst residents have federal vouchers to help pay for housing.

The vouchers are commonly referred to as Section 8, but the federal government starting calling them Housing Choice Vouchers years ago.

Many people say they want to live nowhere near those with such vouchers. And in a wealthy town such as Elmhurst, they're likely to succeed.

Of Elmhurst's nearly 17,000 housing units, just 41 were occupied by voucher recipients in 2019, according to statistics from the DuPage Housing Authority. That's two-tenths of 1 percent of the city's entire housing stock — or one out of every 500 households.

Neighboring Villa Park and Addison, both of which are considerably smaller than Elmhurst, each have three times the number of voucher recipients. Housing is also much cheaper in those towns.

Elmhurst makes up 5 percent of DuPage County, but only 1.3 percent of the county's 3,192 voucher holders in 2019.

Naperville is three times the size of Elmhurst, but has 13 times the number of voucher recipients.

Some towns even wealthier than Elmhurst have far fewer voucher holders. Among them are Hinsdale and Burr Ridge, both of which are mostly in DuPage County. According to the authority's statistics, Hinsdale had four voucher recipients in 2019, while Burr Ridge had one.

In most states, including Illinois, landlords are allowed to discriminate against those with federal housing vouchers because of the extra requirements, including unit inspections every two years.

In 2000, Naperville became one of the few towns around the country to ban housing discrimination based on source of income. A few years ago, it clarified that law to explicitly ban discrimination against recipients of Housing Choice Vouchers. No other town in DuPage County has such a rule.

Nationwide, just 14 percent of families with children in the Housing Choice Voucher program live in neighborhoods where fewer than 10 percent have incomes below the poverty line, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The center largely blames that situation on the landlords who refuse to accept vouchers.

Kenneth Coles, executive director of the DuPage Housing Authority, said one of the reasons Elmhurst, Hinsdale and Burr Ridge have so few voucher recipients is they contain mostly single-family housing. Naperville, by contrast, has more than 13,000 rental units, he said.

Another reason is that Elmhurst and similar towns have such expensive housing that the vouchers are often unable to cover rent, Coles said.

In Elmhurst, the 41 voucher-holding families have a total of 21 landlords.

"Eighty percent of landlords who participate have one unit," Coles said in an interview. "It's really a ma-and-pa operation."

Even with a law such as Naperville's, Coles said, it's hard to determine how much discrimination exists against voucher holders. That's because while landlords may be required to take applications, they may later deny them, he said.

Coles encouraged voucher recipients to file complaints if they believe they have been discriminated against.

"Even if you feel it's a waste of time, please report it," Coles said. "If I were to feel discriminated against, I would file a complaint with HUD. Let them determine if it was discrimination. You never know unless you ask."

He noted the federal government pursues Fair Housing Act violations, citing the U.S. Justice Department's recent lawsuit against Hinsdale over the village's efforts to shut down a sober living house.

Coles said he did not understand the opposition to voucher holders. If the voucher program were eliminated, the county's housing court would still be plenty busy with all the other landlord-tenant issues, he said.

During the pandemic, Housing Choice Vouchers have become more popular among landlords, Coles said.

"If the voucher holder loses income, all the rent will still get picked up," he said.