Over at Neighbors Together, I have been working to support several of our members through the process of getting a new apartment with a voucher. After the arduous process of actually getting a viewing, filling out a preliminary application, and then finally being accepted, the clients are ecstatic. But unfortunately, as I tell them, this is only the beginning of the long, frustrating task of having the rental processed through the agency that administered the voucher.

The process is—to put it poetically—opaque and labyrinthian. Here are some observations I wanted to share.

Housing seekers with vouchers are given very little useful direction by the agencies who administer the vouchers.

This is literally what people are given.

Clearly some well-meaning person put this together. But it is horribly out of touch with reality.

A list of “real estates” that a voucher holder was given to call. Much of the information is outdated or incorrect.

I mean, come on.

Vouchers come with no instructions that I know of. Vouchers holders are told to call up “real estates.” It seems that the agencies who administer these vouchers have no idea how people look for apartments these days, and there is very little communication between the government agencies and real estate brokers.

As we all know, most housing searches today are done online through sites such as StreetEasy and Zillow. The problem here is that these apartment searching sites seem to be loosely monitored and are often replete with discriminatory language and illegal apartments. Most real estate agents who do rentals are completely clueless about how vouchers work and we all know what people do when they don’t understand something. They avoid it.

Then, there is often the real estate agent who blames their landlord client, saying that “Oh it’s not me, I love everyone, but the landlord doesn’t want to deal with it.”

But the fact is, if the landlord owns a building with six or more units, they are required to take housing vouchers in all their units. It’s the real estate agent’s responsibility to advise them about the law and convince them that voucher holders can be wonderful tenants. Because they can. I can think of several people off the top of my head who I feel confident would be amazing, respectful tenants.

But there’s another issue at play here.

Voucher holder deals take a long time and most real estate companies do not properly incentivize agents to work with voucher holders

Here’s a worn-out resource list provided to housing seekers. Much of it is illegible.

There are progressive real estate companies out there --- Bohemia Realty comes to mind--- that have adopted company policies that are altruistic and generous. This would change the game if all companies would follow suit and offer special incentives to agents who work with voucher holders. Because the process takes so long, agents should not have to split their commission with their broker, particularly when dealing with vouchers such as Section 8 that only offer a half-month broker fee.

For real change to occur we need to take a holistic view of the process. It seems that right now, real estate agents on the ground are not even part of the conversation. I wonder why that is.

Anyway, back to my list of obstacles:

To find an apartment you need ample access to the internet or a computer

Imagine having to do a housing search at the library on one of their computers. These computers are often very slow. Have you ever tried working on one of those? One time I did, and I swore Never Again. You are allowed to sign up for a half-hour session. Just imagine how much you can realistically get done in a half-hour. (Psst: The answer is: not much.)

Ok, so now I am guessing some of you might be thinking--- well, just look on your phone. Everyone uses their phone to look online. The city has free wifi! Read on.

Many voucher holders have limited access to an outlet to charge their phones

If you live in a shelter, as many of my clients do, there is limited access to electrical outlets to charge your phone. I have found that many also have multiple phones just so they can try to keep some access to the outside world. This makes it difficult to stay on top of showings and to communicate seamlessly with agents and landlords to coordinate showings. I am told that electrical outlets are such a commodity that they are often rented out by shelter residents who have medical machines and are therefore commandeering the outlets. So in the shelter, the guy with the defibrillator is at the top of the pecking order.

It’s possible that your income is too high to receive a voucher yet you don’t make enough to get an apartment on your own

Those are the people who, out of desperation, end up going rogue and taking one of those illegal basement rentals on Craigslist. The problem with those is simple: they are illegal. And the reason they are illegal is because many times they are not up to code, so they are unsafe.

So what can we do about all of this?

If you’re a building owner, educate yourself. Be empathetic about the struggles of our fellow humans. Only work with ethical real estate agents who know what they are doing.

If you’re a real estate agent who handles rentals, be a real estate agent who understands and follows the law. Let’s be compassionate humans first. It’s not always easy to stand up for what is right, but it’s never wrong.

In closing, here’s that Martin Luther King meme that everyone was posting all over the internet yesterday:

Some Thoughts on Housing Vouchers