San Francisco landlords systematically and illegally refuse to rent to people with Section 8 housing vouchers, a year-long undercover sting by a watchdog group found.
Investigators from the Housing Rights Initiative nonprofit posed as prospective tenants and asked landlords whether they accept Section 8 vouchers. The watchdog said its investigators were discriminated against 44% of the time in San Francisco and found similar results in Oakland, San Jose, and Los Angeles.
The group is now asking state regulators to punish 203 California real estate agents, brokerage firms, and landlords for allegedly violating a 2019 law that prohibits discriminating against voucher holders, in a mammoth civil rights complaint…