Senate Gives Final Passage to Bill Expanding Housing Options for Vulnerable Delawareans

By Delaware Dem on July 1, 2024

Low-wage earners, vulnerable seniors, veterans and people with disabilities will have greater access to stable and affordable housing in Delaware under legislation the Senate sent to Governor John Carney on Sunday.

The Senate gave final passage to Senate Bill 293S by a unanimous vote after the House sent the bill back to the Senate after amending it and passing it earlier on the day on Sunday. The vote in the House was basically a party line vote, with new Republican Sean Matthews (good riddance to him) voting with his brethren in voting no. The vote was 25-14-2. The previous Senate vote in May was also a party line affair, 14-5-2. I guess Republicans want people to be homeless, while at the same time their Supreme Court just banned homelessness (in that if you do not possess a home, you can't sleep outside anywhere).

Roughly 6,500 people in Delaware currently receive rental assistance through either the federally funded Housing Choice Voucher Program or the state-funded State Rental Assistance Program, due to their income, a disability, previous military service or involvement with the foster care system.

Although those housing subsidy programs guarantee monthly payments directly to landlords, many Delaware landlords turn away tenants who participate in those programs, often citing complicated administrative burdens they say are associated with voucher programs – a form of housing discrimination legally permissible under current state law.

While both the Delaware Fair Housing Act and Delaware's Residential Landlord-Tenant Code technically prohibit discrimination based on source of income, each of those laws also state that a landlord's refusal to accept government-sponsored rental assistance cannot be used to justify administrative or judicial proceedings.

As a result, families who hold vouchers often struggle to find housing in Delaware, which only has an estimated 38 available units for every 100 extremely low-income renters. Due to the lack of available housing, the average family spends close to 3 years on a waiting list for a voucher. Once a voucher is issued, only about 35-45% of voucher holders are able to secure housing within 120 days.

Both the 2020 Delaware Statewide Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice report developed by the Delaware State Fair Housing Consortium and the African American Task Force's Infrastructure & Environment Subcommittee recommended that the Delaware General Assembly pass legislation to prohibit discrimination against tenants with housing vouchers.

Sen. Lockman and Rep. Moore introduced similar legislation to prohibit housing-voucher discrimination in 2021. Although that measure was passed by the Delaware Senate and released from the House Housing & Community Affairs Committee in 2022, the bill was never brought up for a final vote in the House.

Sen. Lockman and Rep. Moore continued to work with the Delaware Apartment Association and the Delaware State Housing Authority, leading to a report being released in May that recommended steps the state's five public housing authorities could take to align their inspection and reporting requirements and make compliance easier for landlords.

The final version of SB 293S passed by both chambers of the General Assembly on Sunday would make compliance with that report by the housing agencies that issued a voucher a prerequisite of any administrative or legal proceeding alleging discrimination based on source of income.

The reforms contained in SB 293S also would not be implemented until January 1, 202, and Delaware's five public housing authorities have adopted recommendations contained in the Delaware State Housing Authority report.

An amendment added by the House on Sunday would make that change contingent on the ability of Delaware's five public housing authorities to standardize and streamline their approval processes, a reform landlords say is necessary to help them comply with the rules and requirements of various federal and state voucher programs.

Senate Bill 293S - Prohibiting Discrimination against Tenants based on whether Applicants receive federal or state housing assistance.	Currrent Status - Senate Passed 14-5-2. House Amended and Passed 25-14-2. Senate Passed Again 20-0-1. Sent to the Governor.
House Sponsors - Moore, Dorsey Walker, Wilson-Anton, Lambert, Morrison, Phillips	Senate Sponsors - Lockman, Pinkney, Townsend
House Yes Votes - Baumbach Bolden Bush Carson Chukwuocha Cooke Dorsey-Walker Griffith Harris Heffernan Johnson Lambert Longhurst Lynn Minor-Brown Moore Morrison Neal Osienski Parker-Selby Phillips Romer Schwartzkopf Williams Wilson-Anton	Senate Yes Votes - First Vote: Gay Hansen Hoffner Huxtable Lockman Mantzavinos McBride Paradee Pinkney Poore Sokola Sturgeon Townsend Walsh // Second Vote: Brown Gay Hansen Hoffner Huxtable Lockman Mantzavinos McBride Paradee Pinkney Poore Sokola Sturgeon Townsend Walsh // Buckson Lawson Pettyjohn Richardon Wilson
House No Votes - Collins Dukes Gray Hilovsky Jones-Giltner, Morris Postles Ramone Short Shupe Smith Spiegelman Vanderwende Yearick // Matthews	Senate No Votes - First Vote: Hocker, Lawson, Pettyjohn, Richardson, Wilson Second Vote: None
House Absents or Not Voting - Hensley, Ramone	Senate Absent or Not Voting - First Vote: Buckson, Brown Second Vote: Hocker

"By passing this legislation today, the Delaware General Assembly took a huge step forward in making our housing assistance programs work for vulnerable Delawareans the way they were always intended," said Sen. Lockman, chair of the Senate Housing & Land Use Committee.

"Thank you to the Delaware Apartment Association and the Delaware State Housing Authority for working collaboratively with Rep. Moore and I over the course of several years to get us to a place where our landlords and our municipal housing authorities are on the same page and moving towards the same goal," she said. "As a result of their diligence and hard work, Delaware's public housing agencies will soon be stronger and better aligned, while hundreds of Delawareans will have greater access to the stable and affordable housing that they desperately need."

"For too long, discrimination has prevented people receiving government assistance from living in safe, affordable housing," said Rep. Moore, the House prime sponsor of SB 293.

"Given the severity of the affordable housing crisis, we should be doing all that we can to remove the barriers that prevent families from finding security and stability in a place they can call home," she said. "SB 293 will help us move closer towards that goal and I thank my colleagues in the Senate for taking this important step to remove barriers to housing for our most vulnerable neighbors."

SB 293S now heads to Governor John Carney for his signature.