photo by: City of Lawrence

The Lawrence City Commission discusses adding source of income as a protected class in the city's nondiscrimination ordinance as part of its meeting Dec. 13, 2022.

City leaders are taking steps toward prohibiting landlords from denying prospective tenants based solely on their use of a government housing voucher or other forms of rental assistance, but they plan to hold off on finalizing the changes until the city holds a meeting for landlords.

As part of its meeting Tuesday, the Lawrence City Commission voted 4-1, with Commissioner Brad Finkeldei opposed, to adopt the ordinance changes on first reading, but to delay the second reading of the measure to finalize the changes until after the landlords meeting. Specifically, the commission asked that the city bring back the changes for finalization no later than Jan. 17, with the intention being that the meeting should be held before that time.

The current proposal addresses source of income as well as other statuses, and the commission also provided direction to further discuss other potential changes at a future meeting. As currently drafted, the proposal would amend city code to “provide equal opportunity to obtain housing regardless of source of income or status as a survivor of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking or stalking,” according to a city staff memo.

The Human Relations Commission has been studying the issue for two years, and prepared the recommended policy changes in collaboration with community members working in the housing field. Mariel Ferreiro, finance manager and landlord liason for the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority, said there are more and more people who have vouchers but are still looking for landlords to accept them.

Ferreiro said that in the last year, there have typically been 20 to 40 people actively searching for a landlord to accept their voucher, but that currently there are 63 people. She said only about 10% of licensed rental properties currently accept vouchers and as new owners have taken over rental properties, many have been lost. She estimated the community has lost more than 1,000 units that accept vouchers in the last year.

A couple of landlords or landlord representatives posed some questions and potential concerns to the commission about the proposal. Mayor Lisa Larsen, who added that she recently began accepting vouchers at some of her rental properties, said that to be consistent with the city’s public engagement goals, she wanted to see city staff hold a meeting with landlords to go over the proposed changes and give them a chance to ask questions and hear more about how vouchers work. Rather than defer the item entirely, Commissioner Amber Sellers, in an attempt not to delay the process too much, suggested adopting the changes on first reading and delaying the second reading, which would still give the commission the ability to make changes if it desired to.

Finkeldei was in favor of the proposed changes, but said he would prefer to delay the entire process until February so that the discussion could also include immigration status as a protected class. A few public commenters expressed concern that immigration status was previously discussed but not included in the current proposal. The rest of the commission agreed they would like to discuss immigration status protections once city attorneys completed their review in February.

The commission also received a presentation from the Human Relations Commission regarding additional policy recommendations. Those included setting a time limit for how long someone must disclose rental history/evictions and criminal history. City attorney Toni Wheeler said more research would need to be done on the additional recommendations and that they would be brought back to commission for consideration once complete.