Jamison Properties, one of Los Angeles’ fastest-growing apartment owners, is being accused of repeatedly turning away renters who rely on Housing Choice (Section 8) vouchers, according to a new investigation. Testers posing as voucher holders reported that leasing staff often told them units were not available to people with vouchers, or laid out income and credit rules that would all but guarantee they would not qualify. The pattern is raising pointed questions about whether the company is playing by California’s source-of-income protections.
Investigation Finds Pattern Of Rejections
Reporters and trained callers posing as voucher holders contacted dozens of leasing offices and logged what they were told. At 15 of 21 Jamison-owned properties, agents said they could not accept vouchers, and public records show that just one Section 8 household moved into a Jamison unit between 2021 and 2024, according to Capital & Main. Testers also documented calls and messages in which agents described credit-score or income benchmarks that would effectively shut out voucher tenants, or claimed the building was still “awaiting approval” to take vouchers at all.
Those details matter because California law bars discrimination based on a renter’s source of income, and the state’s civil rights agency has already gone after housing listings that say “No Section 8,” according to the California Civil Rights Department. At the same time, a federal analysis from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development shows that voucher searches succeed only about 61% of the time in most jurisdictions, which means roughly 4 in 10 recipients never manage to lease a unit with their voucher within the study’s search window.
How Testers Say They Were Turned Away
Capital & Main trained testers to call leasing offices about apartments advertised at 65 buildings owned or managed by seven large landlords, instructing them to keep emails, texts, and recordings of phone calls. Across that broader sweep, Jamison emerged as an outlier. Testers said they were repeatedly told that many Jamison buildings would not accept vouchers at all, that acceptance hinged on vague “city approvals,” or that entire buildings had to pass inspection before voucher tenants could move in.
The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles told reporters that it does not inspect entire buildings before a property can participate. The agency said it inspects only individual apartments after a landlord has already accepted a tenant’s application, a key clarification housing officials offered in response to the testers’ accounts.
Jamison’s Rebuttal
Jamison is pushing back. A company spokesperson disputed the investigation’s conclusions and told The Real Deal that some of the units in question were under master leases controlled by third-party operators, and that Jamison itself was not managing those properties when the calls were made. According to the spokesperson, those master-lease agreements require the operators to follow all applicable laws, and Jamison believes that the properties under its direct control comply with legal obligations, per the company’s statements to the outlet.
Legal Stakes And Thin Enforcement
Under SB 329, the 2019 law that broadened California’s definition of “source of income” and took effect in 2020, landlords may not refuse to rent to applicants simply because they use rental assistance. The state civil rights agency has explicitly warned landlords and targeted unlawful “No Section 8” ads, according to the California Civil Rights Department…