Beginning on Sept. 1, 2023, Texas homeowner associations (HOAs) won’t be able to ban tenants “based on the method of payment.” The new law, championed by Chris Turner, a Democrat from Grand Prarie, gathered the support of Democrats and enough Republicans during the regular legislative session after a North Texas HOA ruled against landlords renting to Section 8 recipients.
In April 2023, the Providence Homeowners Association in Denton County gained attention after it was highlighted on HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver as exploiting a “segregation loophole.” According to The Dallas Morning News, the HOA’s rule enacted in June 2022, would affect 157 households, effectively displacing over 600 residents, 90% (93% according to the Texas Tribune) of whom are Black.
While the practice is not common, as reported by the Texas Tribune, at the time Providence HOA enacted the rule there was no state or federal law that would forbid it. In 2020 the Inclusive Communities Project released a report that found only 226 rental properties in the Dallas-Fort Worth area accepted vouchers out of 1413 rental properties surveyed. Additionally, the organization found 18 suburbs where the majority of the population was white to be “voucher no-go zones.”
“We simply cannot allow these associations to become a vehicle for discrimination, even in isolated cases,” said Turner in an official statement. “Section 8 Vouchers assist low-income Texans in affording decent, safe, and sanitary housing. There is no reasonable justification for banning these residents from living in any neighborhood.”
On June 26, the Providence HOA board adopted an amendment to its restated rental and leasing rules by “removing all references therein to Section 8 Housing.”
“When you see occupancy rates as high as it is and the market is as hard as it is, it becomes increasingly difficult to find landlords who will take Section 8,” Inclusive Communities Project’s executive director Ann Lott told the Texas Tribune. “This is a big victory for us.”