This year, three public housing agencies in San Diego County committed to policy changes that grant nearly 30,000 low-income families the same protection from excessive rent increases guaranteed to other California tenants.
That means — for the first time — half a billion dollars in federal housing vouchers will have an additional layer of oversight, saving untold millions and stretching limited funding even further.
And new records from the San Diego Housing Commission, the region’s largest public housing agency serving 17,000 city households, offer a peek into the process and potential impact of ensuring rent increases for low-income tenants comply with state law. Dozens of requests to raise the rent have been denied this year.
These changes followed an award-winning inewsource investigation that ultimately revealed half of the county’s six public housing agencies, which are responsible for managing the federal Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program, were approving rent increases for low-income tenants without checking whether they exceeded the cap set by state law.