photo by: Douglas County GIS

This aerial photo from 2018 shows an area of East Lawrence along 12th Street, at middle, from Rhode Island Street, at left, to Delaware Street, at right.

The City of Lawrence will soon host informational meetings about changes to the city’s fair housing ordinance, including new protections for applicants who receive rental assistance such as Section 8 housing vouchers.

The ordinance changes will go into effect June 1. The changes, which the Lawrence City Commission approved in February, prohibit landlords from refusing to accept applications from potential tenants who would pay all or a portion of their rent with rental assistance, or from rejecting an application based solely on a tenant’s source of income. Landlords can continue to use regular tenant screening processes. Other new protections make it unlawful to discriminate against applicants based on their immigration status or their status as a survivor of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking or stalking, so long as the victim notifies the landlord appropriately.

The city will host three community meetings in conjunction with local agencies, such as the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority, to answer questions before the law goes into effect, according to a city news release.

•April 18: 10 a.m. in the auditorium of the Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vermont St.

•May 9: 2 p.m. in the Bly Room at Holcom Park Recreation Center, 2700 W. 27th St.

•May 24: 6 p.m. in the Legacy Room at Sports Pavilion Lawrence, 100 Rock Chalk Lane.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development began using housing choice vouchers, also known as Section 8 vouchers, so people in need of affordable housing would have more choice in where they decide to live, according to the release. In Douglas County, the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority administers all vouchers. The city helps support the LDCHA through its affordable housing trust fund, which allocates money annually to organizations working to improve the availability of affordable housing in the community. As the Journal-World has reported, housing authority representatives have said only about 10% of licensed rental properties currently accept vouchers and as new owners have taken over rental properties, many of those options have been lost. The new ordinance also benefits local organizations such as Tenants to Homeowners and the Housing Stabilization Collaborative that provide housing assistance and affordable housing.

“When the new ordinance goes into effect on June 1, it will immediately increase the housing options for low-income Lawrence residents, which the City anticipates will reduce the amount of people currently experiencing homelessness in Lawrence,” the city states in the release. “Some of these people have Housing Choice Vouchers now, but they are unable to find a landlord who will accept them.”

The city states that housing is the solution to homelessness, and the ordinance is another piece that gets the community a step closer to “functional zero.” A draft of the community’s strategic plan for addressing housing and homelessness calls for achieving “functional zero” homelessness by 2028, meaning the number of people experiencing homelessness never exceeds the community’s capacity to move people into permanent housing.

More information about the new law is available on the city’s website, Lawrenceks.org.