The goal of our campaign is to expand housing opportunities for seniors, people with disabilities, families with children, veterans and others with legal, nonwage income. This would be accomplished by amending the Illinois Human Rights Act to require that all legal sources of income (SOI)—including employment, retirement income, public benefits and/or rental subsidies—be treated the same in residential real estate transactions.
We ask you to endorse the campaign to ensure that everyone should be given an equal chance to be judged without prejudice attached to their source of income. Please note, however, this change to state law would not create a mandate to rent to anyone.
Why is it important to expand opportunities?
- In Illinois, over 575,000 households (including families with children, senior citizens, veterans and people with disabilities) have some form of nonwage income to obtain safe, decent and affordable housing. Nonwage income includes any lawful income, subsidy or benefit, including SSI, SSD, TANF, child support.
- There are also approximately 82,000 households in Illinois that use Housing Choice Vouchers to help afford their rent. Without this assistance, many families, particularly persons with disabilities receiving SSI benefits, would be unable to obtain housing. More than 2,500 veterans use vouchers set aside for this population.
- Other subsidy programs include Illinois’ Rental Housing Support Program and the Bridge Subsidy Program, which assists people with disabilities move from institutions such as nursing homes into their own apartments.
- Denials based on source of income disproportionately limit the housing choices of African Americans, Latinos, persons with disabilities, and female heads of households. Denials based on SOI offer a legal pretext to refuse housing to protected persons.
- According to a 2011 HUD study, jurisdictions with laws prohibiting SOI discrimination experienced improvements of up to 11% in voucher utilization rates. The study also found in jurisdictions with SOI laws, voucher holders were less likely to live in areas of concentrated poverty and racial segregation.
- A 2015 study (Chetty, Hendren, and Katz) found that children whose families used vouchers to move from high poverty to low poverty communities had incomes 31% higher upon reaching adulthood than those who stayed in high poverty communities.
Landlords still have a choice. Under this proposal, owners maintain their ability to screen all applicants equitably. Owners can deny housing to people who do not meet their eligibility criteria.
State Legislation
To create the needed consumer protections, we are advocating for Senate Bill 1331.
For more information, please contact Bob Palmer, Policy Director, Housing Action Illinois at 312-939-6074 x. 206 or bob@housingactionil.org.
Please see endorsing organizations below.