We who live in Northern Virginia and in particular Arlington County face very heavy housing costs both for rents and homeownership.   My county Arlington has long provided its own housing rental grants program to low income seniors, disabled people, and families with a child generally earning below 40-percent of the area median income.   The county government also allocated Federal HUD housing choice vouchers.  It also has funded about 7,000 subsidized units through nonprofits, but we still over 5,000 rental households with heavy housing cost burden earning below 50% AMI with no assistance.

We the Arlington Greens have supported expansion of the county housing rental grants program to more needy households as the most efficient and effective housing assistance and something that allows renters to live anywhere in the county and not just in identified low income nonprofit housing.  Some private landlords including the largest single low income apartment complex refuse to accept either the county grant nor the HUD voucher and thus tenants have a hard time finding a unit.

We believe it is in the public interest that all commercial landlords should as a matter of business accept any government funded rental assistance, whether county funded or HUD funded.  It is important the low income renters be allowed to rent anywhere and not refused permission to rent in more affluent areas or be subjected to discrimination simply because they receive some housing rental assistance.  

In Arlington it is mainly disabled and seniors who get county funded rental vouchers, and then refusal of landlords to accept these county vouchers is de facto discrimination against the disabled and senior citizens.   Discrimination is wrong.

Please approve a strong prohibition against landlords refusing to honor government rental assistance payments as ordinary income.  A dollar is a dollar and in fact a dollar guaranteed to be paid by the county or HUD is more assured than a dollar earned from a job.