Should California landlords be required to rent to tenants with federal housing vouchers?
They are under state law, but a Sacramento-based property manager is contesting that requirement in court with what has become a common legal refrain in challenges to such laws across the country.
The Housing Choice Voucher Program, often dubbed “Section 8,” helps low-income renters cover a portion of their rent on the private housing market.
(That is, it helps renters lucky enough to snag one; the program has never had enough funding to cover more than a fraction of all the households that qualify.)
Since 2020, California has banned landlords from refusing to rent to voucher holders. In the years since, the state has seen a wave of civil rights lawsuits by tenant rights groups, who often hire “testers” to pose as Section 8 holders and surreptitiously record the denials they receive. In mid-July, a nonprofit watchdog group accused Greystar, the largest apartment landlord in the U.S., of systemically refusing to rent to voucher holders across the country — including in California.
Fourteen other states and Washington D.C. explicitly ban Section 8 discrimination by landlords.
Now, one property manager is fighting back.
Last week, Tower Bridge Property Management, which manages roughly 300 rental units around the Sacramento region, and its owner Tom Manning, sued the state for violating a right often evoked by criminal defendants.
Landlords who accept voucher payments are first required to have each unit inspected for health and safety violations by local housing authorities. They’re also required to provide paperwork to local and federal authorities. Both requirements violate property manager and landlord’s Fourth Amendment rights to be “free from unreasonable searches,” the lawsuit argues.
Earlier this year, a state appeals court in New York accepted a similar argument in striking down the state’s anti-Section 8 discrimination rule, while a conservative legal nonprofit in Virginia made a similar challenge there.
Manning is being represented by the libertarian Pacific Legal Foundation, which has also represented homeowners challenging impact fees and inclusionary zoning rules in California.
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Other Stories You Should Know
We can’t plant trees fast enough
With wildfires growing more intense due to climate change, California forests are being wiped out faster than they can be restored, writes CalMatters’ Rachel Becker.
Over the past quarter century, wildfires have burned 2.3 million acres of California forestland, according to a draft of the state’s new reforestation strategy. Some research estimates that half the state’s forestland could be gone by 2071.
State and federal agencies are working to restore and reforest some of these lands, but experts say it isn’t happening fast enough: The report says California would need to scale up its reforestation efforts by 35% annually to meet state goals, which would require more money, staffing, space and seeds.
- Stewart McMorrow, staff chief of wildfire resilience for Cal Fire: “We need to focus on reforestation as an emergency. … We are slowly losing our forestland, and we’re not catching up.”
Trump admin ties emergency funding to elections
California is taking the Trump administration to court a third time over its attempts to tie crucial emergency preparedness funding to the president’s preferences on immigration and election administration.
In a coalition with 24 Democratic-led states, Attorney General Rob Bonta is suing President Donald Trump’s administration for imposing new conditions on Homeland Security grants.
Most of these new rules relate to conducting elections, including mandating states to employ a federal system to verify the citizenship of all their voters; using hand-marked paper voting ballots; and carrying out post-election audits, according to the lawsuit in Rhode Island’s federal court.
The conditions also require states to assist with federal immigration enforcement and enable federal agencies to terminate states’ funds at their discretion.
The federal agencies are using public safety as “a bargaining chip,” said Bonta, and unlawfully withholding funds that Congress already appropriated.
And lastly: Tell us what you really think 💅
Two of you took the time to share your thoughts about the question we asked with our headline Thursday. We wrote, “Should grizzly bears roam California again?”
Our respondents wrote, “NO.”
Good to hear from you!
California Voices
California should let its refineries retire without state intervention, and then support refinery workers who lose their jobs and ensure that gas remains affordable, writes Ranjit Deshmukh, an environmental studies associate professor at UC Santa Barbara.
Other things worth your time:
Covered California rates to jump nearly 10% as thousands struggle to afford coverage // The Mercury News (gift link)
A Marin County teen reporter searched for his community in the Epstein Files. Adults freaked out // WIRED (paywall)
CA dodges a bullet on Colorado River cuts // Los Angeles Times (paywall)
Homelessness increases in LA despite Bass’ efforts // Fox 11 (free)
How OpenAI’s models escaped their sandbox and slipped past CA’s AI law // KQED (free)
A beloved Santa Monica Montessori closed its doors. An AI school is moving in // LAist (free)
CA school boards grant themselves hefty pay raises following new law // EdSource (free)
New student visa limits could ripple through Bay Area labs and campuses // San Francisco Chronicle (gift link)
Orange County suburb alarmed as ‘exceptionally rare’ cancer sickens multiple children / The Guardian (free)
