Milwaukee County in 2018 banned landlords from categorically rejecting recipients of housing assistance. More than five years later the county’s Office of Corporation Counsel, which is supposed to enforce the protections, says it has yet to receive a verified complaint of such discrimination. That’s not for a lack of discrimination, a Wisconsin Watch investigation found. Some landlords continue to explicitly reject Section 8 applicants — even saying so in public listings. Four Section 8 renters told Wisconsin Watch no one informed them about the protections or how to file a complaint.
Moreover, Milwaukee County officials now question whether they can enforce the provision. Income-based discrimination is the law in Wisconsin and 21 other states to various degrees. However, income-based protections in Wisconsin’s Open Housing Act allow landlords to refuse vouchers, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 1995. Milwaukee County Chief Corporation Counsel Margaret Daun told Wisconsin Watch her office questions whether the county has legal authority to enforce the ordinance.
Milwaukee County and the city of Milwaukee operate separate housing agencies that distribute Section 8 vouchers, with the majority coming through the city. Only the county’s authority mentions the 2018 protections in information packets meant to help renters navigate the program. Neither packet says how to report income-based discrimination to the county.
Section 8, the federal government’s largest low-income housing subsidy program, serves 2.3 million households nationwide, including more than 16,500 people in Milwaukee County in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
It aims to broaden housing access for participants, but renters and housing advocates say landlords outside of historically disinvested neighborhoods rarely rent to people with vouchers — one of many factors limiting opportunities in Milwaukee and nationwide, particularly people of color.
Throughout the Milwaukee metro area, 85% of families of color holding vouchers lived in minority-concentrated neighborhoods — areas where just 38% of rental units were considered voucher-affordable, the analysis found.
