# Social Services and Public Safety Committee - Special Meeting - November 14, 2023 > Auto-transcribed civic record · November 14, 2023 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/5963 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/5963?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2023-11-14 - **Last revised**: November 14, 2023 - **Length**: 27,754 words - **Speakers**: Chair > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Special Social Services and Public Safety Committee convened on November 14, 2023, at 6:00 PM, with Committee Chair J. Reynolds presiding. The meeting focused entirely on informational discussions regarding the Fairness Ordinance and source of income discrimination issues, with no formal votes taken during the session. The committee heard from 10 members of the public who provided comments on source of income discrimination matters. The agenda included three items: a review of the Fairness Ordinance, dedicated time for public comment on source of income discrimination, and concluding remarks from Committee Chair Reynolds regarding next steps for the committee's work on these issues. ## Attendance All members were present for the meeting on November 14, 2023. **Present:** • J. Reynolds • W. Baxter • J. Brown • C. Ellinger • T. Fogle • B. Monarrez • D. Gray • F. Brown • D. Sevigny • K. Plomin **Absent:** None **Late:** None ## Public Comment Ten speakers addressed the council during public comment, with all comments focused on source of income discrimination and the Section 8 housing program. **Supporters of Anti-Discrimination Measures:** Steve Scat Cats opened public comment [timestamp: 06:30] expressing concern over landlords refusing Section 8 vouchers, which he argued contributes to homelessness and limits housing choices for families. Casey Lyons [timestamp: 09:00] emphasized the connection between housing and healthcare, highlighting struggles faced by Section 8 voucher holders in finding housing. Alyssa Turk, representing Greenhouse 17 [timestamp: 12:00], discussed challenges survivors of domestic violence face in securing housing and the importance of accepting third-party payments. Josh Buckman, a medical social worker [timestamp: 24:00], stressed the critical need for stable housing among his dialysis patients who rely on Section 8 vouchers. Elizabeth Sheen, a case manager [timestamp: 27:00], shared difficulties her clients experience finding landlords who accept third-party payments, resulting in unstable living situations. Quinn Troya [timestamp: 39:00] supported proposed ordinance measures, noting potential to expand housing access beyond Section 8 vouchers. **Opposition from Landlords and Property Representatives:** Chris Johnson [timestamp: 15:00] shared negative experiences as a Section 8 landlord, citing financial losses and administrative problems. Zack Peterson, a real estate worker [timestamp: 21:00], described challenges including program delays and costly repairs that led him to exit the Section 8 program. Joe Markham, a landlord [timestamp: 33:00], argued that proposed ordinances would not increase housing availability and could drive up rents. Robert Jones, representing the Central Kentucky Apartment Association [timestamp: 42:00], opposed the ordinance citing concerns about government contracts and potential rent increases. The comments reflected a clear divide between housing advocates and service providers supporting anti-discrimination measures versus property owners and managers expressing concerns about program administration and financial impacts. ## Contested Items The November 14, 2023 meeting featured significant community debate over a proposed Source of Income Discrimination Ordinance that would ban housing discrimination based on an applicant's source of income. The ordinance drew substantial public comment from both sides of the issue. Supporters advocated for the measure as a necessary protection against housing discrimination, while opponents, including landlords, raised concerns about the proposed regulations. The contentious nature of this item was evident in the level of community engagement, with residents and property owners attending the meeting to voice their positions on the ordinance. Both strong support and opposition were expressed during the public comment period, highlighting the divisive nature of the proposed housing policy. The extracted data does not indicate the final outcome or disposition of this ordinance at the conclusion of the meeting. *Note: Specific transcript timestamps were not available in the provided source materials for this contested item.* ## Review of Fairness Ordinance [timestamp: 00:30] The committee conducted a review of proposed changes to the Fairness Ordinance during this discussion item. The primary focus centered on amendments that would prohibit discrimination in housing based on lawful source of income. Key speakers during this review included D. Sevigny and Mr. Barberi, who presented information and participated in the discussion regarding the proposed ordinance modifications. The committee examined the specific language and implications of adding lawful source of income as a protected category under the existing Fairness Ordinance. This amendment would expand anti-discrimination protections for individuals seeking housing, regardless of whether their income comes from employment, government assistance, or other legal sources. The agenda item was designated as informational, indicating that the committee was reviewing the proposed changes for educational purposes and future consideration rather than taking immediate action. No formal vote or decision was made during this session. The discussion provided committee members with an opportunity to understand the scope and potential impact of the proposed amendments to the Fairness Ordinance, setting the groundwork for future deliberations on this policy matter. ## Public Comment on Source of Income Discrimination [timestamp: 06:00] The meeting included a public comment period focused on a proposed ordinance to ban source of income discrimination in housing. Community members and stakeholders were invited to share their perspectives on this housing policy initiative. Multiple speakers participated in the public comment session, though specific names and detailed comments were not provided in the available meeting materials. The comments addressed various aspects of the proposed ordinance, which would prohibit landlords and housing providers from discriminating against potential tenants based on their source of income, such as housing vouchers, disability benefits, or other forms of assistance. This agenda item was designated as informational, meaning no formal action was taken by the governing body during this portion of the meeting. The public comment period served as an opportunity for community input and stakeholder feedback on the proposed source of income discrimination ordinance. The discussion represents part of ongoing policy deliberations regarding fair housing practices and tenant protections in the jurisdiction. Source of income discrimination ordinances are designed to increase housing access for individuals and families who rely on various forms of income assistance, including federal housing vouchers and other government benefits. No specific concerns, recommendations, or outcomes from individual speakers were detailed in the available meeting documentation. The session functioned as a standard public comment period where community members could express their views on the proposed housing policy before any potential future action by the governing body. ## Committee Chair Comments – Next Steps [timestamp: 03:00] Committee Chair J. Reynolds provided comments regarding the next steps in the ordinance review process during this agenda item. The chair outlined the procedural path forward for the committee's ongoing work on ordinance review. Reynolds addressed the committee members about the timeline and expectations for upcoming meetings and deliberations. This was an informational item with no formal action taken by the committee. The discussion served to orient committee members on the process and schedule moving forward. *Note: Detailed transcript content was not available for this agenda item, limiting the specificity of this summary.* --- ## Full transcript Music Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. Good evening. I will now call to order the Special Social Services and Public Safety Committee Meeting of November 14th, 2023. I want to thank everyone for joining us today for this special meeting. And I especially want to thank my colleagues for being here and to all of the people who took time out of their evening to join us and share their opinions with us. I want to call this special meeting because I think it's important to hear from you. We want to hear from the people we represent as we consider new legislation. And now, before we go to the ordinance, I would like to recognize all council members present as part of this meeting and part of quorum. Now we're going to go to the review of the fairness ordinance. I think we have Mr. Barbary from the law department and he will be coming up to go over the ordinance and proposed changes by council member Savigny. Good evening. I'll be brief so not to cut into the public comment time. really pretty simple it's only two pages long um chris could you move it down a little bit there you go so all of the changes in here are basically highlighted uh the most efficient easiest way to do this was to just basically bootstrap it on to um the existing ordinance uh so that that's what we've done as far as as where it's landed um i've heard some comments and concerns about whether it could be done a different way it could this just seemed like the most reasonable way of laying it out chris could you go down some more one of the changes that was made from the time this was initially discussed if you could go to the second page chris um we wanted to make sure that in subsection i think it's not keep going down to nine chris In subsection nine, about halfway down, we wanted to make sure that basically part of what's captured is that the income would actually have to be counted as income because that apparently was a loophole maybe in what the Louisville ordinance had laid out. So the second half of the last part of this sentence in section nine has been added on since you all originally started talking about this. but it could be done like similar to one of the last things you all did with the human rights commission ordinance was the crown act and that was laid out in a separate section something similar could be done here if that's what you all wanted to do or it could actually be a separate standalone ordinance but one of the reasons we went in this direction was because this is an organization that already exists that's used to enforcing similar things like this they have investigator people on staff already and they have enforcement abilities already set out so it just seemed logical to do that if you wanted to move away from them being that entity then you would have to identify a division in in the government and and probably staff that to do that instead and i'm happy to answer any questions that you all have I think Councilmember Gray has a question. Thank you, Chair. So I heard you say that under the fairness ordinance that it's the most, I guess, easiest and efficient, correct? How much work would it be to place this potential ordinance separately on a standalone but still have um the hrc as the as i see you shaking your head it would not be it would that would not be difficult to do we could certainly do that our concern is is is if you don't have hrcb the enforcement entity you're going to have to identify what any that's probably staffing it as well if it's not them but no it could certainly be a standalone ordinance or like i said similar to the crown act and the crown act you actually have a separate section all together but it's also in the same ordinance um just for myself i just have an issue i know that it seems like we're creating a a suspect classification of our own of source of income and i don't the other areas that we do have for the fairness and what have you those aren't choices you know i mean that is not saying that that your certificate or your voucher is, I think I'm wording that incorrectly, but you can outgrow that situation at those two, the others. So that's my reservation of placing it under the fairness ordinance, but if it's possible the standalone with also still having the enforcement being the HRC, I'm welcome too. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Any other questions before we move on? All right. Thank you all. Thank you very much. Now it's time for public comment on source of income discrimination, which is why you all are here. And I first want to remind everyone that if you would like to speak to please sign in on the iPad when you come in, You will have until 6 30 PM to sign in. Our new council rules are now in effect. I'm going to go over that in a second. So everyone will have three minutes to share. Our new council rules say that only two people can yield their time for a total of nine minutes. And I'm sorry that that's a change from what you might have been expecting. our new rules were passed and are now in effect. So the total that someone can have to speak is nine minutes with two other people yielding their time. I will not be allowing extensions of time. Please state your full name and council district for the record. And if you do not do so, I will stop you and ask you to do that at the beginning of your comments. In an effort not to be here all night, we have a lot of people signed up to speak. We want to hear from everyone so that I ask that you try not to be repetitive and if you've heard somebody say something that you were going to say, to either say something else or not speak. We're trying to hear as many people as possible. Remember to be courteous and not to slander anyone. Our council rules do not permit us to interact with comments, but we are listening and we are taking notes. I will call up two people at a time, so please prepare and be ready when I say your name. So if you're out in the mezzanine and you hear your name, please come and get ready to speak. Our rules do not permit clapping, cheering, or signs that obstruct views. So please remain silent. I think that's all. I just want to put it all out there at the beginning. Okay, so we are ready to get started. The first person that I have is Steve Katz and the next Casey Lyons. Hi, my name is Steve Katz. I live at 113 Clyde Street in the 11th District. We're in an affordable housing crisis that is multi-layered and complex and requires a variety of possible solutions, including the housing assistance from the federal government known as Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers. I'd known for a long time that three-quarters of those eligible for Section A vouchers don't get them because of insufficient funding. I think it's a national disgrace that the richest country in the history of the world can't put a roof over the heads of its citizens, but that's not on you all. In August, I attended Kentucky Housing Corporation's annual affordable housing conference at Central Bank Center, And I was shocked to hear one of the plenary speakers say that nationally, the utilization rate for those vouchers was barely more than two-thirds, because the vouchers often expire before the lucky 25% that get them can find a landlord that will accept them. Since then, I've seen some estimates that up to 40%, two out of every five that get vouchers, lose them because they can't use them. Here in Lexington, I've heard Austin Sims claim that only one out of five of the lucky 25% lose their vouchers this way. Well, that's still shocking and shameful. This is a moral question. Local governments in well over 100 cities across the country, including both Louisville and Cincinnati, have passed protections for those in need as are contained in this proposed ordinance. Does this council care as much about all of its people as the Louisville Council does? Or are a majority of you beholden to special interests that don't want to be subject to inspections that go along with accepting vouchers to ensure that their dwellings are habitable? The stability that comes from having a decent place to live gives people hope and can keep our community together. Banning source of income discrimination could mean that families will have more of a choice to live in neighborhoods where their children can better thrive. And it also means that less resources have to be spent on social services. Doing the right thing also makes economic sense. So please do it. Thank you. Thank you. I had mentioned Casey Lyons. Is Casey Lyons ready? And then the next person is Alyssa Turk. So if you could please get ready, Alyssa. Thank you. Go ahead. Hi, my name is Casey Lyons, and I live in Council District 5. There are a lot of reasons to ban source of income discrimination, but they all come down to one thing, to help people get and stay housed. Source of income discrimination kneecaps otherwise excellent programs wasting tax dollars that should be housing our neighbors. Voucher programs like Section 8 often have three-year waiting lists, and then when you finally do get a voucher, no one takes it, and this leads to homelessness. The streets are full of people with untreated health issues, and housing is health care. People can't take care of their health without housing. They don't have a bathroom. They don't have a way to store medication. They get lost or freeze. They have no consistent place to charge a phone, which is probably their only calendar an alarm clock for appointments. Homelessness is terrible for sobriety, mental health, and suicidality. Fayette County Jail is also full of people whose only crime is being homeless. We throw people in jail for something as small as sleeping or panhandling somewhere they aren't supposed to, while wage theft and exploitation don't even get investigated. We lock the bathrooms in the city parks and then arrest people for using bush. People who are struggling to survive turn to drugs, theft, survival sex work, and many other illegal things. Anything that helps people get and stay housed is a crime reduction strategy, and banning source of income discrimination is one of them. Data shows that investing in affordable housing specifically and healthcare more broadly reduce crime. For example, when the Affordable Health Care Act passed and states chose to participate in the expansion of Medicaid or opt out, the states that expanded Medicaid had a sustained drop in crime that didn't happen in the states that opted out. I've already emailed you all just a few minutes ago, so you might not have seen it yet. A study that shows for every dollar spent on health care, education, or affordable housing, crime goes down. And for every dollar spent on policing, crime goes up. The numbers are clear. If the goal is to reduce crime, meeting basic needs is the way to do that. The solution to homelessness and its attendant health and crime problems is not to punish the impacted. They're already miserable. They know it's a situation they need to get out of. We don't need to convince them of that. What we can do is help them actually get out of the situation by ensuring them the right to housing. Thank you. Is Alyssa Turk ready? And then Chris Johnson after that. And it looks like Greg Johnson. Is Greg Johnson here? Yes. You've yielded your time? Okay. All right, so Alyssa. Hey. Good evening. My name is Alyssa Turk. I'm here representing Greenhouse 17, which is in Lexington's District 12. For those who might not know, Greenhouse 17 is an agency dedicated to helping survivors who are fleeing domestic violence. Leaving an abusive partner can be one of the most difficult things someone can do, especially in many situations where people are leaving everything that they have behind. The majority demographic that we work with are women and children who have had to make the decision to leave their homes in an attempt to live a life free of violence. Because of the current housing crisis, many of our clients, for many of our clients, short-term and long-term vouchers are the only way to get families on their feet to create safe homes for themselves and their children, sometimes for the first time ever. But when we can't find housing to utilize these vouchers, survivors are being forced to stay in shelter systems or stay in unsafe situations. There has been lots of conversation in our community about homelessness intervention, and we are incredibly grateful for the amount of financial assistance that our government has been able to offer to our clients. But right now, the real problem we're facing is access to housing units that will accept that assistance. We urge you to consider the impact that a ban on income discrimination will provide to our community of survivors. Thank you. Thank you. chris johnson you will have six minutes the council chris johnson district 12 um thanks so my name is chris um grew up in stamping ground just north of here but i call lexington home from an early age when i started investing in real estate in 2016 my intentions were to predominantly accept section 8 tenants the promise of steady guaranteed income was appealing as rent collection to every new landlord is the biggest fear i've had a potential i had every potential tenant fill out an application and never accepted one did not meet the same standards that i still use today i accept section 8 voucher 13 times in the last seven years and 93 of those experiences were negative to my bottom line both of the both business and financial standpoints i still have two section 8 tenants today one of which is great and one which has never paid rent on time to date i've experienced multiple delays in payments loss of payments and from the administration in the voucher program I've had multiple tenants ultimately destroy my properties on several occasions several occasions exceeding ten thousand dollars in only a few months and these reunits that were just renovated I stand here today as someone that has tried the program and elected elected did not accept it due to a consistent negative experiences that being said over 65% of my tenant base our minority families and great tenants. I know many other investors in Lexington's that have similar stories with the voucher program which is why this is the statistic used with 70% of investors that have previously taken the program don't accept it any longer. I do however agree that there is an issue and feel the solution is to not quote-unquote make us consider Section 8 as we already have that option and 70% of us of them have elected not to. So a show of force even though it's not labeled as such, it's what it is. You're opening the door for us landlords to be sued for discrimination when the majority of landlords I know are protecting their businesses. I believe this bill will not only hurt landlords, but also hurt the people it's trying to help. I spoke with fellow landlords that own properties in Louisville, where this law has already passed, and none of them spoke of it in favor. In fact, they all told me they just increased rents and increased background requirements so the properties were ineligible for voucher holders. You're being told this will not happen, but in fact I know it already has. This turn drives up rent and not only hurts voucher holders, but also hurts low income housing. You may think this train of thought is radical, but even though I say it's not possible, the next logical way to mitigate these issues is rent control. These small steps warm the water to eventually lead to policies that existing council members might not necessarily agree with but ultimately you're playing a big role in i do think that the kentucky tenant group has the best intentions and has brought light to a situation that needs to be addressed with that i believe the goal we have a golden opportunity to find the landlords in lexington that are not accepting your program and discuss with them why for the growth with a growth-minded perspective if this bill passes we will no longer have that ability just like any private sector we must just like any private sector business we must meet demands of our customers in order for them to use our services as it stands right now section 8 housing vouchers are not getting repeat business the community needs so we have two options make landlords take it or refine the system and make the landlords want to accept it this includes incentives support reimbursement for destruction of property vetting potential voucher holders that would so they would have a positive representation of the program and other ideas that landlords could put forth the firsthand experience. Section 8 has said it best that they don't want this law passed because they ultimately want to work with landlords that want to work with them. So it's all worked together in this critical moment, refined this program with a perspective on both sides for a better future of Lexington. I, for one, with holding multiple rental properties, would be the first one to jump back into Section 8, as was my original goal. But being forced to do so just isn't going to be what it is. And I know it's not being forced. It's just more or less warm in the water for me to say, consider these tenants, which I already have that. So I would be really excited to see what Section 8 could come up with, with some of our feedback, with fellow landlords to work together to get this passed. But forcing them is only going to make a negative for low-income housing, which is what I've learned from other tenants or other landlords in Louisville. And I just don't want that to happen in Lexington. I know that Kentucky tenants have the best in mind for what they want for these tenants. uh the community but i just you know with knowing both sides of this i don't think this is what the excellence really needs so thank you all thank you and now uh zach peterson is next and if josh buckman could also get up and get ready i would appreciate it thank you Hello, I'm Zach Peterson. I live on Lane Island Road, Council District 10, I believe. I've been working in real estate since 2011, so more than a decade. I've been doing it way before there was ever an affordability crisis. No doubt that we have a crisis, but I don't agree with what's being proposed here for what could fix that crisis. I love what I do. I've been working with the Section 8 program that entire time up until about seven or eight months ago. I've had very negative experiences. And let me first say that most all the tenants were phenomenal, so this has nothing to do with discrimination or anything personal against any residents or whatsoever. but my experience with the program itself was very poor. There was huge delays on inspections. A lot of times with certain inspectors, they would just nitpick stuff that, you know, peeling paint on soffits, stuff like that that was costly that the tenant didn't care about. You know, it probably should have been fixed, but, like, it didn't really need to be fixed to get them in and start paying rent. so it was just it ended up being very costly and time-consuming and like any other business when things take time and ultimately cost money I had to pull out of the the program so I thought that was unfortunate I work with everyone there pretty much knows me my company and with dynamo properties but I did have to pull out eventually. Unfortunately, if this were to pass, I would have to take some serious considerations here. And this really isn't anything I'd want to do, but I mean, if we have to be forced to participate in a program that maybe we don't want to, then we'd have to look at possibly increasing rents to kind of make up for just the delays in getting rent payments and whatnot. Man, that time's going by fast. The federal government, they never intended this to be mandatory. It was always supposed to be optional. And like Chris said over here, I would be very interested in coming back to the Section 8 program. I think instead of making it mandatory, let's just make it better. Section 8, they're going in the right direction. They're offering $500, I've heard up to $1,000 to participate in the program. I think that's a step in the right direction. They know that things haven't been up to the par, they're operating the free market, and they're trying to get people back in. So that's great. But I think if we were to pass this legislation, it'd be a step in the wrong direction. And ultimately, it will raise grants because it will raise costs for business owners. I know there's a lot of organizations saying that that hasn't happened, it won't happen. But I'm just telling you as someone that does this for a living, it will happen. And it's not what I want to happen. Thank you for hearing me out. Thank you. Next is Josh Buckman. And then if Elizabeth Sheen could please get ready. Yes, my name is Josh Buckman. I live in Council District 6. I am a medical social worker at a dialysis clinic. Dialysis is a treatment for individuals with kidney failure. Our patients require dialysis in order to live. Most of my patients are unable to work because of their illness, and they rely on Social Security for income, and many of them rely on Section 8 housing. because homelessness tends to lead to more mistreatments and because when you are homeless it is a struggle to get to the dialysis. Homelessness excludes people from transplants which transplants are the the only cure for renal, end-stage renal failure. And homelessness also excludes, well if you're homeless you can't do home dialysis, which actually leads to longer happier lives for people with end-stage renal disease. So I rise in my support for this ordinance. Thank you. Elizabeth did you have someone yielding time to you that you knew of okay so Elizabeth and then if Joe Marco could come get ready thank you okay hi my name is Betsy shine I'm a homeowner in district 11 and I'm here today to voice my support for a ban on source of income discrimination I'm a service provider in Lexington I currently work as a case manager with KRM this is an agency that provides case management and other supportive services for immigrants in Kentucky. A small portion of what we do as an agency includes offering direct housing assistance to help establish and stabilize housing for vulnerable families and individuals. The families and individuals receiving direct housing assistance from KRM are some of our most vulnerable neighbors. They're families who have very recently moved to Lexington, fleeing violence, persecution, and war. They are parents and children children leaving abusers and people recovering from illness or adjusting to life with a disability. In my role as a case manager, I sit down with clients and we craft a service plan together, we set goals. We ask questions like, what can I do to advance my career? How do I get enrolled in English classes that fit my childcare schedule? How do I learn to use LexTran so I can get to all of my medical appointments? However, it's very hard for families or individuals to think about achieving goals when all they can think about is that they don't even have a place to live. Housing stability is a key foundation to achieving goals and to success for most folks. So I'm currently working with a family of five on finding stable housing in Lexington. They've been living in a motel for almost two months now. It's two adults and three children in one room. The family has been approved for housing assistance through my agency since September, but We struggle to find a landlord willing to accept the third party payments. I am hopeful for this family actually because this past week we did find a property manager who was willing to accept these payments. But, I mean, we don't have the keys in hand, the family is not housed yet. And I know this has been a really difficult time for them in the motel room. So finding stability in their housing will allow this family to focus on more than just their basic survival. And they can move towards achieving their goals. So far this year, KRM has issued housing assistance to over 100 households in Fayette County. The families and individuals who have received housing assistance from my program have been hard pressed to find a landlord who would accept them. While people wait, they're forced into unstable living situations like motels, cars, doubling up with extended family members, all of which the McKinney-Vento Act defines as homelessness. Lexington needs this ban on source of income discrimination. I've seen firsthand how long Lexington families have to wait and how limited their choices are. We cannot wait any longer. This ban will help Lexington's families, including the people that I work with every day. Thank you. Thank you. Now, next is Joe Marco and if Quinn Troia, I'm not sure how to pronounce last name, but would come next. Thank you. Council members, thank you for your time. My name is Joe Markham. My wife and I own 22 single-family homes in Lexington across multiple council districts. We provide housing for 70 Lexington residents. All these houses are under the fair market rents established by HUD. Over 24 years, we've provided rental housing. We've dealt with the Section 8 program numerous times. At one point, we had 13 properties that accepted vouchers. We currently have zero. This has nothing to do with discrimination and everything to do with the business interactions we had while dealing with the Lexington Housing Authority. Council Member Fogle and the Lexington Housing Authority Executive Director Austin Sims have both said they are opposed to this ordinance. Listen to them. They are correct in their opposition of it as it is written. While I understand and empathize with the intent behind this ordinance, I am very concerned about what actually emerges if it passes. Intent versus what emerges should be a familiar concept to any Marxist or other students of economics in this room. Frederick Engel said, what each individual wills is obstructed by everyone else, and what emerges is something that no one willed. Too often, things like this ordinance are passed without due consideration, and once implemented, they are never again revisited. Their intent and what emerges are never measured against each other. Thomas Sowell said one of the real problems is you have people making decisions for which they pay no price when they are wrong, no matter how high a price other people pay. This ordinance has a definite price. It will make housing more expensive in Lexington for every renter. It will establish a floor for the rental rates. This ordinance adds zero units of housing to the limited stock already available in Lexington. It will not make a single unit available in quote-unquote better areas with better resources. The rents in those areas are higher than what the voucher holders can legally pay. Voucher holders represent approximately 5% of the renters in Lexington, 3,600 vouchers versus approximately 70,000 rentals. Mr. Lanter's presentation showed approximately 4% of houses accepted vouchers by definition. I've run multiple searches and found the percentages to be slightly higher. There is no shortage of units of Section 8 housing. The expected percentages is accurately reflected in the admittedly short housing supply in Lexington. This is further proven by the voucher usage rate at 99.9% as provided by the Lexington Housing Authority. No vouchers ever get lost or returned. They get passed on to the next person because they are choices involved. Someone may not have a choice that meets their standards, so the voucher then goes to someone else to choose a house. By forcing housing providers to participate, you are creating new government dependents, the voucher holder and now the housing provider who is dependent on the government. An option in the Section 8 program allows the voucher holder to use the voucher for a home purchase. Does this ordinance force banks to accept this lawful payment as a source of income? If not, why not? Especially given the history of redlining, banks should be held to the same standards. Due to the extreme time limits on speaking, I've sent multiple emails with details on my thoughts. I will reach out to set up a time to discuss them with all council members individually. In summary, passing this ordinance is bad for all renters and housing providers in Lexington. It will not accomplish what it intends, and what emerges will be detrimental to the entire city. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next is Quinn Troia, and then after that we have Robert Jones, and I have that three people said they were going to yield their time to Robert Jones, but our new rules allow two people to do that so between kathy johnson stephen marshall and lisa risner if you could decide who's yielding time and if one of you wants to speak you can okay but right now we have quinn go ahead hello council members my name is quinn troia i'm a resident of district three and i've been living in lexington for the last five years as a runner during my my time running in Lexington I have lived in properties where I've experienced mold poisoning where I have experienced heat exhaustion as well as issues related to extreme cold and frostbite and those have been properties that were considered too high rent for section 8 vouchers a lot of this discussion has discussed solely section 8 vouchers and this ordinance's impact on section 8 but this the wording of the ordinance includes lawful sources of income outside of Section 8, including things like child support payments and other secondary sources of income. So the focus solely on Section 8 misses the broader potential this ordinance change would have to expand access to the most vulnerable members of our community. Rents continue to rise in Lexington, as do weights for the usage of Section 8 vouchers. A recent, comparing in June of 2020 to June 2023, weights in between getting a voucher and receiving housing increased from 28 days to an average of 118, a 266.7% increase in the span of three years. The time it takes from people to get a house or getting to housing is time that they are not receiving all of the benefits and luxuries that having housing provides to all of us. We are asking you to remove this barrier to access. We are asking you to make it so that landlords do have to consider these lawful forms as income equally as they do other things. Tacking onto the fairness ordinance, the fairness ordinance itself protects the rights of Lexingtonians like me who might otherwise be subject to forms of discrimination based on factors like age and not age, on gender and sexuality, which are protections that people in my community did not have historically in Lexington. Expanding access to our most vulnerable community members is deeply important, and it does not force landlords to ultimately accept Section 8 housing, but it does force them to consider it. And considering the vouchers would expand the access of potential housing for all Lexingtonians. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Robert Jones. And who is Kathy Johnson yielding time to Robert Jones? Are you here? okay so that's three minutes is steven marshall he had to leave early he had to leave so is lisa risner no i think yeah she's yielding time to me she has to be here and state that she is lisa you let me know that you're yielding your time to me hold up but are you yielding it to me like you had yes okay so then uh you will have nine minutes It's about an hour. Nine. You will have nine minutes. Thank you. And then if we could have Claude Kelly get ready after that. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Robert Jones. I live in District 6. I'm serving currently as the president for the Central Kentucky Apartment Association. The CKA is an educational and legislative trade association with over 27,000 rental units as members. Also along with my wife, I'm the owner of four rental units of our own that we have the financial goal of essentially selling them when my nine-year-old son is ready for college and pays for his education. That's our financial goal. I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to public comments. And specifically, I'd like to thank council members Denise Gray, Dave Sevigny, and Shayla Lynch for taking the time to meet with me personally on this topic. I think those conversations are extremely productive. despite what some think it is possible to have civil discussions with people of opposing views and still respect each other i'm very thankful to those three for having those civil conversations i know everyone views housing providers as the big institutional bad guys but i think a lot of people would be surprised to hear that in the united states over 50 percent of rental providers are quote unquote mom and pop owners we don't have the the institutional backing of giant companies in in most circumstances. As an association the CKA is opposed to the proposed legislation primarily because it does require housing providers to enter into a contract with the government. We've been told that all it does is prevent a housing provider from advertising is no section 8 but that's only on the surface. Ultimately if a voucher holder applies and is approved the housing provider is required to sign an agreement with the government. I truly appreciate the effort and research that Charlie Lander and his team completed to add to the proposal but I'd like to add some additional notes and data that I think are important for context. As a housing provider, everyone in this room can appreciate the notion of creating more affordable housing. We're all on that same team. I've not heard one person speak against it. However, the proposed language does not create more affordable housing. Per CoStar, which is a nationally recognized resource company, the inventory of affordable rental units in Lexington is nearly 4,500. Even if this number were higher, the Lexington Housing Authority is only allocated a certain number of vouchers to service. There is not a shortage of affordable units in Lexington related to what the Housing Authority has allocated to them. I've sat in many forums over the last several weeks and a consistent message I've heard is that the concern is being entered and again that contract with government. Another thing I've heard repeatedly is how well of an operations Austin Simmons' team have run at the Housing Authority. Concerns over that process have nothing to do with their organization. I think the things they've accomplished for this community over the many years of their their tenure are immeasurable unfortunately they also have guidelines and regulations they have to follow given by the federal hud program it's hud that determines the rules of the game asking local housing providers to fix the problems and procedures with the federal program is unfair one example of this the argument's been made that the large majority of affordable properties are located north of main street have we thought about why that might be is that redlining by by local housing providers? No. Did you know that affordable property developers, for them to build more units, the first thing they have to do is check to see if where they're going to build is in a qualified census tract. The first question they ask, to receive the incentives that make the affordable development pencil, financially, developments have to be in a qualified census tract. Who determines what those areas are? Is it the local housing providers? No. It's determined by the federal level HUD program. I'll send you documents tomorrow that cite all of these sources as well just so you know. Also, a comparison to Louisville has been often made. There are a few things that haven't been included that are extremely relevant. One at the time of Louisville passing this ordinance, they had thousands of vouchers that could not be used due to a lack of affordable inventory. As I previously outlined, Lexington does not have the same inventory problem. Our inventory exceeds the amount of vouchers the housing authorities allocated to service. So it's not the same situation Louisville was in. An argument's been made that this will cause rents to go higher. In the source of income presentation, they outline the average rent at the time it passed in low of $895. When they rechecked one month later, it had risen to 904. As we're all aware, nearly all leases are a 12 month period. As such, how could we possibly expect any material change in the course of 30 days? What we do is very cyclical because it's the nature of the leases. Anyone in the industry can tell you that it often takes two to three leasing cycles to truly feel the impact of major change. Coincidentally, we're almost exactly two and a half years after Louisville added source of income protection. What's the average rent in Louisville today, you might wonder? $1,132. $237 a month or over 20% higher than it was when this was put in place. Is source of income 100% responsible for this increase? Of course not. But I think we'd all be naive to think that it did not have a major impact in that rent increase. Not only that, less than one month ago, costs are released article highlighting the national markets that led the country in your rear end growth and markets of seventy five thousand more units guess who ran to the top of that list will kentucky number five overall one spot behind chicago and ahead of the markets like philadelphia new york seattle dallas nashville list goes on a lot of the one was passing will they want to back into historical number of new development rental units being delivered to the market Between 2018 to 2022, they had nearly twice the number of new units added to the market from the previous five years. Typically, in any commodity, when a lot of new supply of product hits the market, prices stabilize. But not in Louisville, where additional administrative costs and time demands were placed on the housing providers. Despite a historical level of new inventory added, rental rates have still continued to soar at a pace higher than nearly all other U.S. markets. Council members, why should we be convinced that this will not lead to the same rental rates here in Lexington? We have a literal case study right down the road in Louisville. It's also been said that there are people living in the streets with vouchers in hand with no place to use them. I'm not saying that's not true, but I have a hard time understanding that that's a really large number. We've already discussed that the amount of affordable inventory is not less than the number of vouchers allocated to Lexington. Not to mention that we have 952 brand new affordable units built and delivered this year alone. That's over 20% of the vouchers the Housing Authority is allocated to service are brand new this year. These are communities with pools, fitness centers, and every other amenity that someone could want. So how is it possible that people cannot find a place to use their vouchers with that much new inventory in an already equal inventory market to the housing vouchers allocated? It's difficult for me to believe the lack of units are causing that problem. I'll end on these notes. There are a few things that sadden me more than when things are pitted as an us versus them. This is not an us versus them. There's only us. We're all living this life together. The way the Herald-Leader and other news outlets have portrayed this does nothing but drive a wedge between both sides, which is not productive. There should be plenty of affordable housing for anyone that needs it. There should also be a choice for housing providers to know how they operate their business for their family that's apart from being tied to a government contract. I understand the incredibly difficult position that you're all in with this upcoming vote, and I often think the conversation between affordable housing, which only speaks to voucher holders and low-income housing residents, is confused with attainably priced housing, which impacts the entire population. This legislation does nothing to fix either of those problems. None of you should feel shamed into voting to pass something that sounds good on the surface, but ultimately does nothing to cure the problem. But because we know now that data and through other testimony that the legislation does not solve the problem, a vote to approve this only tells all the constituents in your district that you're more interested in voting for buzzwords than you are facts. Tomorrow I'll send an email again outlining what I've said and also providing the data. I don't want to sit up here and provide sources and data without actually showing those to be true. I hope you look forward to that. And again, I appreciate all of your time. I know this is not the most productive way you all plan to spend your evenings away from your families, but I want you to know that either side of the opinion here, I think we can all appreciate your time spent on this. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Cloud Kelly, and then Jess Bowman follows. Thank you. Hi. Hi. My name is Cloud Kelly. I'm a renter in District 1 and I used to rent in District 3. I'm here today to express my support for a ban on source of income discrimination. 17 states and 119 cities, including Louisville, have passed this ban and have shown us that doing so in Lexington would substantially improve the ability of renters here using third-party access to housing. There have been claims that passing this ban would cause rent in Lexington to go up. evidence shows that this has little if any weight in any case my rent is already increasing all the time every year constantly if I could tell myself that this increase was so that everyone in Lexington could have the same access to safe and sanitary and affordable housing as anyone else I would gladly take the increase however I cannot tell myself that because I know that other cities who ban source of income discrimination have rate increases below national average. We need to ban source of income discrimination by the end of the year. Housing is not a product, housing is a human right. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. And next is Jess Bowman and after her is Claire Hilbrecht. Hi. I I feel like I have to lean over. Jess Bowman, Council District 9. The 9th District, I love the 9th District, it's where I've lived 30 years of the last 30 years of my life. We have smooth roads, great schools, access to lots of shopping, grocery stores, beautiful parks. And everyone in this city deserves to live there if they choose. Everyone deserves to live in any district without discrimination. And we all, including our children, benefit by being in relationship with people from a variety of lived experiences. The ninth district has the fewest rentals of any district in the city and only a handful take housing vouchers. This ban on discrimination isn't just limited to housing vouchers, which we've heard a lot about and I'm sure people more experienced and versed than me can speak to. The change in the ordinance would also include child support, alimony, SSI. Someone who's in the middle of a divorce and receiving child support and or alimony, should they have to uproot out of the area they're familiar with, where their kids go to school, maybe where they work? I'm personally in that boat. I'm glad Greenhouse 17 spoke to the circumstances survivors of partner violence face. Financial insecurity is one reason people may feel stuck in harmful homes. And what about an elderly person or couple who's downsizing their home but wants to remain in the neighborhoods they're familiar with, where their support systems are, where they've maybe lived for decades because their SSI income isn't counted? Discrimination in any form is not acceptable in a city that prides itself on being welcoming. So welcoming, we just spent $250,000 for a sign to say so. I believe we can work together to make this a truly welcoming city. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Claire Hilbrecht, and then after Claire is James Woodhead. Hi, my name is Claire Hilbrecht, and I am a resident in Lexington's 4th District, and before that I was a renter in District 3 for three years. I'm here to urge this council to place a ban on source of income discrimination so that all members of our community have access to safe, affordable, and timely housing options that they need to bring stability to themselves and to the people that they care for. My previous partner and dear friend Michael who will also be speaking tonight is a single dad who had to rely on Section 8 housing to support himself and his daughter Evie while he was putting himself through college and working a full-time job. Throughout our three years together, I saw firsthand how important it is that that access to safe affordable housing is to bringing stability to families. Michael had to forego employment during the first year of the pandemic so that he could stay home and take care of Evie while she was doing school remotely. Without the support that affordable housing offered Michael and his family, they would have not had a place to live. Or else they would have had to endure crippling child care expenses and unsafe environments, as I know many of the families in our community had to do. Access to safe and stable housing was absolutely critical for Michael and Evie's well-being for over four years, especially during precarious times. And I am so thankful that they did not have to endure unnecessary difficulties because landlords did not deem accessibility for families like theirs profitable. I cannot imagine how unnecessarily difficult and harmful that would have been on this child's life. Michael and Evie are not the only family to have to rely on subsidized housing options to support themselves, and they will not be the last. We need to put measures in place now to protect these families in our community. Thank you. Thank you. And next is James Woodhead, and after that is Michael Maloney. James Woodhead, I'm in the 10th district. As a working class resident of Fayette County, I was fortunate to become a homeowner in Lexington prior to rapidly increasing housing costs that would now price myself and many other working families out. This is reflected by the fact that the majority of people that work in Lexington no longer live in the same city. Unfortunately, as a public school teacher, many of my coworkers, students, and families can no longer afford to live in a city that is consistently ranked at or near the top of the country for month over month rent increases. I support a ban on source of income discrimination in Lexington. Regrettably, wages in our city have not kept up with the cost of living, particularly for housing. As it stands, coworkers at Lexington's second largest employer have had to depend on rental assistance and other forms of income, but unfortunately are not always successful in finding a receptive landlord. Even more troubling is knowing that nearly 500 students in Fayette County are currently considered to be homeless. Working at a school where the Kentucky Department of Education reports over 94% of students are economically disadvantaged, up from 90% last year, It is not uncommon for the majority of my students to be houseless or housing insecure. Without bold action, the number of houseless students in our public school system is projected to nearly double to 1,000 students by the end of the school year. I do credit Council's recent steps to attempt to increase the supply of affordable housing in our community by beginning to allocate more funding to homelessness prevention as well as the Affordable Housing Trust Fund and expanding the urban service boundary. However, too many tenants continue to be threatened with forcible detainers or live in residences that are inaccessible and unsafe, while struggling to find adequate housing that accepts vouchers or other forms of payment. It's alarming that this problem is likely to substantially increase as millions of federal dollars for housing stabilization funds that one in ten Lexington tenants have depended on are expected to run dry in the upcoming weeks. I have watched the proposed legislation already set in committee for the past year. I urge you to pass a ban on source of income discrimination before the end of 2023. With the city's rental assistance funding soon ending, this anti-discrimination protection will be needed now more than ever. Vote yes to a ban on source of income discrimination and help keep Lexington's working families and students, house, and communities together. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Michael Maloney, and after that is Christian Torp. Hi, my name is Michael Maloney. I'm currently a renter in Lexington's 4th District and have been since 2021. Before that, I rented in the 11th District for four years. And I'm here today to talk about my experience living in Section 8 housing and the importance of access to affordable housing and the limitations that the people seeking and experience. So my daughter is 10 years old. For seven of those years, I have been raising her as her sole source of income and caregiver. And for four of those years, we were reliant on income-based Section 8 housing. We moved into Section 8 first in 2017 when I made the decision to complete my college degree and go back to school full-time. and I knew after looking around town that with working less, I could not afford the rent that I was paying previously and we would have to move. But I did not know that I would come incredibly close to having to move out of Lexington entirely. In the months prior to returning to school, and I say months because it took literal multiple months for me to find a place where I was going to be able to afford to live with my daughter. I came really close to moving to Nicholasville or Richmond and having an almost hour-long commute every day while trying to arrange child care. But I finally was able to find an income-based community shortly before returning to school. But even then, with my last chance, I was barely able to get into this community because of such drastically limited availability of housing. there was just one unexpected opening and I got in at a hair's breath. During the time that I lived there I saw many people and many families who were not as fortunate as I was. And at times the wait list for this community got up well over a year because there were just so few units available and such high demand. And even for the folks who did get in, for a lot of these families their needs just weren't met by what was available for affordable income-based housing in Lexington. I saw families of one parent and as many as four children living in a small two-bedroom apartment and having to just make it work. And that happened many times, and I know many folks have seen that as well. And, you know, access to Section 8 housing, I was very fortunate that it was able to meet my needs, and it fundamentally changed my life. I was able to complete my college degree while taking care of my daughter, and now I'm able to work with an organization addressing food insecurity in Lexington. And I see through my work now with the families who I am supporting and trying to help them meet their needs that this issue persists across Lexington, and it remains urgent. That there are families all over our city whose needs are not met by the affordable housing available now, and we cannot afford to wait any longer to help them meet them. Thank you. Next is Christian Torp, and then Adrian Williams. Good evening, Council, and thank you for this opportunity to speak. My name is Christian Torp. My family and I live at 552 Elm Tree Lane, 1st District. I'm a general contractor, a real estate investor, and the owner of Joshua Holdings, LLC, which is the recipient of a grant from the Affordable Housing Trust Fund for the redevelopment of 554, 556, and 558 Elm Tree Lane. Thank you, and I wholeheartedly support the proposed ban on source of income discrimination. One dollar spends as good as any other, and the only thing that not banning source of income discrimination would do is allow source of income to be used as a proxy for what would otherwise be an impermissible race or national origin discrimination of violation of the United States and Kentucky Civil Rights Act. Discrimination predicated on source income disproportionately affects people of color. And whatever someone's intent may be in asking someone source of income, Jesus said, you know a tree by its fruit. And if not doing something has a racially discriminatory impact, isn't the choice not to do that thing racist in effect, even if that was never the intent? People talking about this ordinance increasing rents begs the question, isn't this the free market? If landlords were able to increase their rents and still maintain sufficient rental unit occupancy, why haven't they already done that? That whole argument negates the whole free market economy system. They'd be charging more anyway if they could maintain occupancy. Thank you for consideration, and I urge you to support the ban on source of income discrimination. Thank you. Next is Adrian Williams and then Jesse Cleary Butch. Hello, committee. I'm Adrian Williams, and I'm a renter in the 5th District, and I used to rent in the 3rd District. I'm here as a leader with Kentucky Tenants to voice my support for a banal source of income discrimination. The reason I care about a banal source of income discrimination is because of the good that Section 8 has done for my family. After my parents divorced when I was a kid, they were left with nothing. Their home got foreclosed on, and our immediate family wouldn't take us in because they didn't support the divorce. We were left with a very small support system in my hometown, mostly consisting of my mom's friends and friends of friends. My mom's sister and I stayed with different folks for months while my mom waited for a Section 8 unit to open up. I remember those months being really stressful for all of us, not knowing how long we would be able to stay with any particular friend of my mom's, and not knowing how long it would be until we had a place for our own. It was hard to concentrate in school, to make friends, or to feel at home anywhere, because I simply did not have one. I remember not wanting to stay with a certain cousin because her dogs would chase me around, and not wanting to stay any longer with another cousin because he ended up being a predator. But as a child, I didn't have a choice over where we stayed, and I know that my mom often didn't have much of a choice either. eventually my mom got us into a section 8 rental unit and it was really great for us the apartment we had was right next to our elementary school and my sister and i had a room for ourselves rather than having to share a room with people what we didn't know very well and that rental assistance also gave my mom the time and resources to eventually save enough money to buy us a house as someone whose family gained a lot from being able to access that should need housing. I deeply want other families who utilize all kinds of rental assistance and other part and other third party payments to be able to do so too. As someone who was a child in the system, I want other children to feel at home in their homes, to feel comfort and stability and like they are in a place that they can call their own. Right now in Lexington, the time that housing voucher holders have to spend searching for a landlord that will take housing vouchers is only getting longer and longer. This committee and eventually Lexington Fayette Council can make the decision this year to side with families and pass a banal source of income discrimination so that families using third-party payments like Section 8 housing vouchers and other types of rental assistance can be housed sooner rather than later. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Jesse, Cleary, Budge, and then following them is Thomas Priest. Hi there my name is Jesse Cleary Budge and I'm a renter in the 3rd district. I have also rented in the 1st, 10th, and 11th districts. I was raised in Lexington and I have spent a significant portion of my adult life here. I'm here to speak in support of a source of income discrimination ban. Right Right now I'm a student at UK studying to become a dietitian and I work as a bike mechanic at a bike shop on UK campus. I take home about $500 every month. Even my rent is $800. So I'm making ends meet with loans and savings which are quickly dwindling. I would benefit a lot from having a housing voucher. However I know how much discrimination is out there. heard from housing commissioner charlie lanter that 96 percent of the housing ads that they looked at mentioned discriminatory language against section 8 housing i care about where i live and feeling good in the place that i live and so i know that a housing voucher is not for me because of the discrimination i would face this is why i'm asking you to pass a source of income discrimination ban By the end of the year. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Danny Everett, and after him is Stephen Kruger. I'm sorry, first Thomas Priest. Awesome. Thank you all for holding this. Sorry, my name is Thomas Priest, and I live in District 3. I don't have any specific testimony to give. My fellow Lexingtonians have given a lot of statistics and testimony on why this needs to be banned. But I instead am going to frame this as a plead at your humanity to think about what it means to be homeless. and I would like for us just for 30 seconds think about that not what it means for someone else but what it means for you in your life And I would also like to ask the council what it means to have a community. Because to me, community means that someone's needs become part of the collective consciousness of that community and that we protect everyone. And homelessness is an omnipresent plead for help. It exists at every moment that they live. And so I would like for us as a collective community of Lexington to protect all of us. And it's not going to end with just banning this, but it is a step in the right direction. I would also like to ask what we lose by banning this. And I would argue that we lose greed. The greed that keeps us from our fellow humans and from our humanity. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Danny Everett and then Steven Krueger. Good evening, Councilman. My name is the Reverend Dr. Danny Anthony Everett. A lot of people know me as Pasty in the community. I'm here to be in support of a ban on discrimination based on source of income. and I've heard a lot of conversation a moment ago about why we have people who are in a homeless situation. But personally, I grew up in Washington, D.C. I grew up in southeast Washington, D.C., in Anacostia. If you know anything about Washington, D.C., that's the hood. I forgot to mention, I'm in District 12. And so I grew up in Washington, D.C., and I grew up moving from place to place. My mother didn't have enough money to stay in one place or another. I know what it is to wake up with roaches crawling on your back. I know what it is to be discriminated against because you don't have the financial means and because you look like someone like me, someone of African descent. We have to be a council. We have to be a city that focuses in on addressing real issues. This is a real issue for many people in our city. As mentioned, I think someone said 500 plus students are without homes. It's over 600 students that are without homes. If we say there's 600 students and then there's a parent or a guardian that's alongside that student, that's 1,200 people that are unhoused here in this city. And so we have to stand up and do something against this. And this discrimination in terms of the source of income is insane. It really is insane. Social Security shouldn't be a problem. Section 8, housing shouldn't be a problem. All of it should be accepted because the real bottom line is not the bottom line that the homeowners are talking about. The real bottom line is the humanity of individuals to be able to live in their homes. I'm happy to say that I live in District 12. I own my home now. I'm happy to be there. But so many others are unhoused. They're in need of housing. And discrimination because of the income is a major problem, a culprit of this. So I implore you to support this ban. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Stephen Kruger. Hello. You all saw me a couple of weeks ago. I am a renter in District 10, and I asked you to ban on a source of income discrimination this year at that meeting. So today I am reading for someone who is not able to attend. Hi. My name is Addison O'Shea. I was not born or raised in Kentucky, but I have moved back to Lexington seven times from across the country and around the world. I currently live in District 2, though I have also lived in Districts 1, 4, 8, 11, and 12. I appreciate the opportunity to explain why I believe Lexington needs to ban source of income discrimination. You see, poverty can happen to anyone. It is not a moral failing or a character flaw. For me, all it took was a neurological disability that derailed my career and a divorce that left me the single mother of two children under the age of four. A Section 8 housing choice voucher allowed me to keep my little family together and raise them to be successful adults. Currently, it allows me to remain independent without being resigned to a care home. I am not an exception. Recent statistics show that 68% of HUD recipients are seniors, single mothers, and those with disabilities. Two years ago, my landlord sold the house I had lived in for 12 years, giving me 30 days to vacate. Because so few landlords accept the housing voucher, I had to accept an apartment ill-suited to my needs. I quickly became withdrawn and unhappy. In my continued search for amenable housing, which took 11 months, I called the number for yet another property. The woman who answered said, you've called before. I recognize your voice. No one in Lexington is taking the voucher and won't for the foreseeable future. Please stop calling. I know that there are many preconceived notions about the types of people on HUD, but the proposed ban will not negate the landlord's right to choose reliable tenants. It merely stops blanket dismissal without known cause. I believe that if we all work together to make housing more equitable, we can enrich the community we have all chosen to call home. I believe that landlords not only have the ability to generate income, but also have the power to change lives. Please pass the ban on source of income discrimination by the end of the year. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Norm Biller, and is Scott Tomlin here? I have that you're giving your three minutes to him. Okay, so you will have six minutes, and then after him is Atticus White. All right, so I wanted to, first of all, say my name is Norm Biller, and I currently live in District 5. I've been a tenant in Districts 7 and 9. I've also owned rental homes, which I've rented to districts, if I read the map right, in Districts 1, 7, and 11. So I wanted to say, first of all, thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak and allowing all of us a chance to speak. We've got some serious problems, and I've noticed that you all have tried hard to figure out what to do about the problems. One thing that has come out over the last year, as we've talked about this, has been that the supply and the demand are out of balance in our market. And so I want to commend you on deciding to expand the urban service area. It may not solve the whole problem, but it's certainly a step in that direction of getting supply and demand a little bit more evenly balanced to take some of the pressure off of prices. So I just want to thank you for all the listening that you've been doing and for trying to work to solve these complex problems. I mean, there's a lot of agreement in my mind with what a lot of the Kentucky tenants are saying. I mean, we definitely don't want to have homeless people suffering in the streets. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that we agree on. The only question is, how do we go about solving the problem? I don't have all the answers by any means. I do want to talk about three important words, and those are stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. I mean, we're all influenced by stereotypes. We all have prejudices. One of the big ones that I've noticed as I've been listening, there's a serious stereotype that's accepted in our society. I don't know if it came from Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol where he's got Ebenezer Scrooge as the selfish landlord that doesn't care a bit about anybody and just wants to get all the money that he can and who cares about what happens to everybody else. I think that's the stereotype that often is out there. I don't believe it's true from my own experience or from the experience of people that I know. But I understand that it's definitely out there. and in reality you know the perception is that people who own rental homes are fabulously rich and it provides them all kinds of money in my own case in the case of most of the people I know who own rental property it's more that we work one job which puts food on the table and then we have a dream that someday we're going to be able to move our family's life forward by owning some rental property and so we work that second job which for decades may not provide a whole lot of extra income because we've got a mortgage and so there's maybe a couple hundred dollars a month that come in from having a house so maybe you have a half dozen houses and then all of a sudden wow I'm making twelve hundred dollars a month but that tenant didn't pay the rent and that cost me fifteen hundred dollars and I'm taking some of the money from my job to subsidize subsidize this rental hobby that I have it takes decades until maybe 20 or 30 years down the road you have the houses paid off and then maybe it was a good investment but in the meantime we're just small business people trying to make ends meet trying to provide a valuable service back in 2008 9 10 the market in lexington was totally opposite from what it is now we had a bunch of foreclosed properties many of those were in uninhabitable condition it was was the investors in town who came out and said, okay, I'll take on the risk. I'll invest my time. I'll invest my money. I'll fix these places up. I'll sell them to homeowners. I'll rent them out to people who want a nice place to rent, to live. And, you know, we really played a pretty important role in our community. Now there's, you know, not been much construction for the last 15 years. were short on houses and it's easy to say, oh, those greedy landlords, you know, they're ruining it for everybody, but I really don't believe that's the case. Another thing I'd like to talk about, we talked a little bit about the stereotypes and prejudice that are out there. We'll talk a little bit about discrimination. That's a really dirty word. And Ms. Gray, I want to commend you for drawing that distinction between, you know, different kinds of discrimination. I think you really hit the nail on the head. I asked my wife the other night. I said, is there any kind of discrimination that's actually acceptable or good? She crinkled up her nose. She said, I don't think so. I said, well, just imagine that our daughter was a teenager again. Would we be happy if she would discriminate against boys who drank too much and drove too fast? Well, yeah, we'd be happy if she discriminated against that kind of person when she's dating. Would we be happy if she discriminated against boys who maybe hit women? Well, yeah, we'd be happy about that, too. So discrimination has a really ugly connotation because of how horribly discrimination has hurt so many people. As you're considering this legislation, please think about the unintended consequences of applying that word to this thing and just see if that's the way we want to go. One thing I will say, we right now have a tenant in a property in Winchester who is behind on her rent. and so far I've worked with her I've taken the chance that maybe I'll lose some money but I've tried to give her every chance to catch up if that property were in Lexington today with the weight of the government saying I'm going to go ahead and pay for the attorney for a tenant in eviction court I would have already filed eviction for her because I wouldn't have a choice right now without excess bureaucracy I have the means to have a little grace Don't take that away from us. It could have unintended consequences. Thank you. Thank you. Let's see. Next is Atticus White and then Lakin Dillingham. My name is Atticus White. I am a renter in District 6 and have been here, been in that area for less than a year. I've also previously rented in districts 10, 11, and 3. And I am here today to express my support for a ban on source of income discrimination. A ban on source of income discrimination will reduce racial segregation in our city. Voucher holders are disproportionately people of color. In Lexington, 76% of Section 8 housing choice vouchers are held by black households. And because of source of income discrimination, can only access certain neighborhoods. if we claim to be an inclusive city that accepts everyone it is vital that we approve a ban such as this the housing authority also provided the herald leader with a map broken down by zip code of where those vouchers are used the map showed vouchers used throughout the city but there are large concentrations of users in the north and east sides of lexington including in district six where i live and there are severe limits once again on them to be able to access housing in areas other than where they currently are i urge you to consider this deeply and as mentioned before think of this from a humanitarian perspective it's very vital that we have a ban on source of income discrimination to be passed by the end of the year thank you thank you and then Lakin Dillingham is I hope I say this right Alan Pinkay here are you yielding your three minutes okay then Lakin you will have six minutes. Thank you. Hello, my name is Lakin Zillingham. I have been a renter in District 2 for about three years. I was a renter in District 11 for one year and District 3 for one year. Before that, I lived in Knox and Whitley County in southeast Kentucky from birth. I unfortunately wasn't able to share my story with some of you who weren't present at the last meeting I had commented out, but for those of you, you know, some had to leave early, but I did really appreciate those who were able to return to bring us back into quorum. Before I'd come to Lexington, I lived in Corbin, Kentucky for one year. I had gotten my first apartment and it had a washer and dryer hookup and it was I was so so excited. It also had a stovetop oven with coil burners of which one exploded on me one morning as I boiled water for tea and that didn't get replaced. The burnt stove didn't get replaced for about two months despite daily notes and calls and when I finally threatened to withhold rent in one of the notes, my landlord suddenly left a voicemail saying he didn't know there was even an issue. I had videos and photos of me dropping off the notes in the drop box, but there wasn't exactly a trial that became useful. Before my Corbin Kentucky apartment, I had bounced from couch to couch or back into the seat of my car. I think often of how fortunate and how privileged I was to have that car to shelter me, when either I physically couldn't stay awake to drive the distance from one of my jobs to the location of an old school friend's couch, or when I didn't have a couch to choose from. I think often of how privileged I was to be able to pay for a 24-hour gym membership so that I could stay clean and keep certain valuables locked in a locker there instead of risking being taken if my card were to be broken into with all my eggs in one basket. That's the bottom line I had to be worried about. I couch surfed in that way for about two years using McDonald's parking lots for the internet to finish school assignments. I think often of the time someone called the police as I slept in a parking lot. The officer saying the caller was concerned I'd overdosed or something as they passed by. I think often of all the parking lots I was told I couldn't sleep in. I think daily about my dad currently in treatment who has been dealing with homelessness for many years now. I think of the way I felt I had no choice but to invoke Casey's law on my own father For him to get housing that wasn't just being taken in and out of jail for homelessness. And the guilt that burns like acid in the pit of my stomach every day. I couldn't get him to stay with me in my home because getting him on a lease would require getting his ID reinstated, getting a new birth certificate, social security card issued for him, helping him find work since I wouldn't be able to financially support him on my own. Not to mention the emotional labor involved in managing the temperament of a 51-year-old man in active addiction. At the last meeting I had commented that. I explained a bit about how my mother, siblings, and I had to stay with other family members because of the wait list for housing vouchers and finding available units to accept our form of payment. I want to again emphasize how lucky we were to have people to bring us into their home and how all the way up into high school, I watched my friends, cousins, and neighbors sometimes not have that option, sleeping in abandoned sheds or in the woods. As a housing outreach organizer for Kentucky Equal Justice Center, I've sat down with several people in nearly identical situations as to what my family endured, if not far worse. I've had to look in the face of a 20-year-old single mother, having to tell her that even though she has been diligent to check in and provided us everything we needed to process her application, that even though she immediately started calling every number on our list to see who would accept her form of payment, that we can't do anything about property managers not wanting to accept a third-party payment. I have to tell person after person after person that because property managers are allowed to choose not to accept any form of third-party payment, that the housing stabilization program meant to help her is not actually an option for her after all. So she went through the process, waiting, waiting, and waiting, not looking for alternatives because she was naturally under the impression that qualifying for rental assistance meant she could rent a place. Housing voucher users aren't the only ones impacted. The population of people evicted who are not using housing choice vouchers, but who qualify for rental assistance granted through the housing stabilization program, are also being turned away. I've knocked doors only to find someone else who couldn't find a place to accept their relocation assistance, sitting right in the living room of someone else's apartment that I was visiting to get them connected to the rental assistance and rent to council. She told me how she'd been sleeping in her car in the parking lot and how the woman who now herself is being evicted was kind enough to let her stay on the couch throughout the day. A lot of the landlords I've heard speak today, I understand if you feel villainized, but the difference between the bottom lines here, some of us don't have safe options. The options available, you don't want to live in mold. You don't want to breathe that in. You don't want to be forced to feel that your life is in danger every day. It's a completely different. You might lose some money, yes. But it's a completely different bottom line. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Shannon Deniston and then Robert Hodge. If you are wearing a mask and you're not comfortable taking it off at the mic, if you would please put the mic in front of the mask. Not all of our council members are hearing clearly. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. My name is Shannon Deniston. And I want to thank everybody for holding the public forum tonight. It's very important. and it's great seeing so many people come out and prioritize tonight's meetings when you could be with family or friends or other loved ones. It's very important, though, that we have this discussion. And regardless of your position on the topic, it's just very important that everybody listen here tonight. So thank you to everyone in the room tonight, not just our council. For more than 20 years, my wife and I would. Did you say, I'm sorry, did you state your council district name? I actually reside in Montgomery County and was told that I could speak. We're looking at investing in Lexington. You can. And what's your full name? Shannon Denniston. And you live in Montgomery County. You live in Montgomery? Montgomery. Okay, thank you. Yes, ma'am. Thank you very much. And for more than 20 years, my wife and I, we provided housing to others. And when we initially purchased our first rental property, it was a duplex. We were excited to join the Section 8 program. A lot of people advised us not to accept the program or not to participate, and we heard a long list of reasons why. However, it was something that we wanted to get the facts ourselves. We wanted to participate in the program, see the good and the bad, and see if it was something that fit our business model. What we were attracted to in the program was the guaranteed form of payment. That's a huge carrot that that program offers and the other voucher programs that they offer in the form of the payment. Just being able to guarantee that that money will be in the bank account each and every month in a timely fashion without it being late. There were some hiccups along the way where, you know, maybe something messed up somewhere and the payment did come in late, but it wasn't like a big ordeal to get it sorted out. So that was the thing that got us into the program. What got us out of the program, and I do want to disclose, we still have one lady. It's an elderly lady that we inherited in a property we had purchased who is still on the program, and we continue to work with her to keep her in that home. But outside of that, we do not accept any vouchers from any programs at this time. And the reason was simply because of the lack of administration. We had a lot of problems, a lot of petty infractions. Sometimes residents would remove the smoke detectors and they would fail an inspection over that or maybe an outlet stopped working or something just very petty to the point where they were threatening to ask the voucher recipient to vacate the property. and after we'd spent hours i think about three or four hours on average filling out the paperwork to get the person into one of our properties um and of course we lost out you know all those days of rent you know because there's a ramp up process it's not just they sign up they pay and they're in a home uh there's there's some days there weeks potentially um before they're actually in there that you miss out on rent so it was the onboarding process um yes that clock goes really quick i'd I'd just like to encourage the council to maybe look at some alternative ways that you can improve the program. I don't like the bribe money of the $1,000 or $500. Just some other ways that maybe people would be encouraged to accept it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next is Robert Hodge and then Dan Moon. Is Robert Hodge coming? Anybody know? He left? Okay. And then Dan Moon. Does anyone know if Dan Moon is out there? Okay. Yes, Dan Moon. In the house. And then we have, after Dan Moon, we have Emily Jackson. Hello, my name is Dan Moon. I'm a lifelong Lexington resident. I grew up in district 4 and I rented in district 3 while attending UK and currently I'm a renter in district 1. I'm here today with Kentucky tenants to support a ban on sorts of income discrimination. Recently I visited the undesigned the red line exhibit at Lexington Public Library. If you haven't been the exhibit details the history of redlining across America and in Lexington. Redlining is defined as practices that networks of financial institutions, insurance companies, and governments use to discriminate often along racial lines among neighborhoods with regard to home loans. Red lining prevented most black families from buying homes and generating wealth based on housing appreciation while supporting wealth generation for white families. Other practices such as racially restrictive covenants and deeds, urban planning and zoning decisions, and policies of urban renewal tore apart black communities and systemically disadvantaged black residents. The exhibit also shows how the effects of these policies are still seen today from our still segregated neighborhoods in Lexington to the racial wealth gap between black and white Americans. Oftentimes when we are confronted with the reality that the institutions we're a part of were complicit in racist policies or actions it's more comfortable to compartmentalize it, to relegate it to the past, and say that we know better now, it won't happen again. I know it was uncomfortable for me as a Lexingtonian to learn that history. But learning is only part of the process. The scars of redlining still remain in our city and our country. According to the Federal Reserve, the average white family in America holds eight times the wealth as the average black family. And in Lexington, as it's been said, 76% of Section 8 housing choice vouchers held by black households and because of source of income discrimination they can only access certain neighborhoods housing segregation may feel like a relic of the past but it is not it is happening in real time and source of income discrimination contributes to it i support a ban a ban on source of income discrimination because without one black families will continue to have disproportionate lack of access to housing and without this ban lexington will still be complicit and the racist housing policies and outcomes that we so badly want to leave in the past. City Council has the chance now to take action and treat the wounds that redlining has left in our community and address the harm it has done to black residents. We need to pass a ban on source of income discrimination by the end of the year. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Emily Jackson And then Elizabeth Hunt. Emily left. Okay, so next after that, after Elizabeth Hunt would be Alison Brown. So Emily Jackson and then Alison Brown. Do I have six minutes or three minutes? You're Emily? No, I'm Elizabeth. Is that Emily? I'm not sure. I thought, oh, I'm so sorry. I thought they said that she had left. Okay, I'm sorry. Who? She did leave. Emily Jackson is not here? Okay, then you're right. You're Elizabeth, you're right. I don't have anybody that has yielded their time written down. Yeah. What is your name? Did you put Lizzie? Okay, instead of Elizabeth. Okay. Then you will have six minutes. Okay. So I want to start this off by saying that all the words that come out of my mouth are not going to be gold. But that in no way, shape, or form means that what I'm saying isn't important. I might have some inconsistencies. You might not understand what I have to say, but you could at least try to pick up. I mean, that's what we're supposed to do, right? To take care of other people, we listen to what they say. I would like to say I'm confused as to are we going to try to solve a problem of housing in Lexington? Is that something that is currently a priority for us? as council members, as citizens, as people that live here, is it a priority to get housing for people? We could say we can have criticisms for this being passed or if it's actually going to fix a systemic issue, but at the end of the day, are we going to try to fix it? If we don't pass this, if you say no to this, you say, I don't like it, no, I don't like it, I don't understand it, or it doesn't coordinate with the people that are funding me, Well, are you still going to care about what we've said? Okay. My name is Lizzie Hunt. I'm currently living with my grandfather in Lexington and District 9. My parents went through a seven-year divorce. The major reason for the prolonging of their separation was housing. My mother realistically didn't believe she could find housing if she left her home with my father that she owned. as she left the home her and my father owned. This continued the ability for my parents to fight. Comfort and peace were not two words ever used to describe my household. I turned 16 and moved to Virginia with my mother. We stayed with my aunt and uncle, and surprisingly, yet another not great situation. Now we could say that my family is just messed up, and that it's just specific to me, and no one else has similar experiences, but we clearly know that that's wrong, right? Because we can relate to other people, but also because of all the amazing people that I've spoken here through my time, joining this group and finding my story in this situation. And from what I've heard, I'm clearly not the only person. We could say that it's just my family issue, but to be completely honest, money is the leading reason for divorce. That's always been the issue. It's money. Hey, it's money. Hey, it's money. Hey, it's money. Over and over and over and over and over and over again. Every time. Whether it was my dad avoiding years of discomfort, denying his depression and disabilities, and blaming others for his continued loss in jobs. whether it was my mom working herself to the bone, thus being drained of emotional intimacy for her daughter or any of her children, making it so I no longer have a good relationship with my mother, which I would love to have. I know everyone says that people like me are fatherless, but I do actually give a shit about my parents. We're not allowed to use foul language in here. Thank you. Whether it was those things, right? Whether or not it ended, whether or not the thing that happened ended, it always started. It always started. It always started with money. In Virginia, I began to find myself and happiness. So I'm telling you, not everything I'm going to say is gold, and it can be confusing, but I promise you I care about what I'm saying. In Virginia, I began to find myself and happiness. Self-expression became a top priority. And, well, you know how that goes for folks like me. Part of this self-discovery was weed. Time passed and shit became hard, and coping helps. While I get to cope in my bedroom, people are forced to cope publicly. Money creates privacy and creates safety. Money clearly creates sleep, safety. We can go on, right? Having access to money creates the means for stability, to create a stable income, one must have a place to stay and sleep. The people that have the need, that have this need, oh my God, Jesus. Okay, the people that have this need, we villainize people that want housing. Why do we villainize people that want housing? It doesn't make sense to me. This should be a normal, expected thing. I should want to be able to have housing and then find access to get it. and not have to, I literally physically would not be able to work enough days in the week to be able to pay what? What am I paying? $150? $1,500 a month? What is that? What is that? Guys, that doesn't make sense to me. That doesn't make sense to me. I'm 18 years old and this is the world that I'm coming into. I'm trying to get a car. I'm trying to figure out where I'm going to stay, where I'm going to live and I can't figure it out. That's why I go talk to these people. Why do you think I want to be friends with them? Because they care about me. It just doesn't make sense. Like y'all say, oh, we hate you so deeply. People like me hate whoever so deeply. I don't know the people that were speaking here tonight, but really what I hate is the fact that you don't listen. In conclusion, passing a ban against income discrimination helps to promise housing for citizens in Lexington. A responsibility of all levels of governing bodies. Housing is not a necessity and it is not to be negotiated by people that are more blessed. Thank you. Thank you. Allison Brown and then a new or on new Casara Bada. Hello my name is Allison Brown and I'm a homeowner in the 10th district where I live with my husband and our two dogs previously I have rented in the second district just behind Grimes's, but when it was still Richie's, in the first district on North Upper Street and in the third district near Cassidy Elementary, and I'm here today with Kentucky tenants to support a ban on source of income discrimination. As someone who has previously lived on $13,000 a year, I understand how hard it can be to find and afford housing. I'm lucky to have never experienced housing instability myself but I do know what it's like to be on the edge and to face the possibility of being stuck in an uncomfortable and at sometimes unsafe living situation because I couldn't afford to move or live alone luckily I have a safety net of wonderful family and friends who helped me when I needed to find a better place to live unfortunately not everyone has such a safety net and many face the additional challenge of financial abuse. Financial abuse is a tactic used by abusers to gain power and control over their partners. It's a method of trapping someone in a relationship and abusive partners will do this by withholding a survivor's earnings, by ruining their credit score, by interfering with their ability to work, and other methods to keep them financially trapped. Just last month during Domestic Violence Awareness Month October, I learned that financial abuse happens in 99% of intimate partner violence cases. Often, survivors report staying in or returning to an abusive relationship for months or for years longer than they would have otherwise, had they been able to afford to support themselves and their children financially. Third-party rent assistance can help survivors facing financial abuse get to safety so they can build lives free from abuse, but only if landlords, if they can find landlords who don't discriminate against them for it. It's absurd to me that out of Lexington's 557 vacant rental units available in September, 534 of those, or 96%, as we've heard, were unavailable to people in using third-party payments. Passing a ban, sorry, that means just 23 units were available to likely hundreds of people with housing vouchers looking for a place to rent. Passing a ban on source of income discrimination can help survivors find safety by making more rental units available to those who are using housing vouchers. Waiting to pass this ban until next year could mean another year of abuse for some survivors. It also means another year of instability for everyone else affected by this type of discrimination. So I urge you today, this evening, to pass a ban on source of income discrimination before the end of the year so that our fellow Lexington residents have a better chance of finding a safe and affordable place to live. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Anu Kassarabada and then Sharon Price. Good evening. My name is Anu Kassarabada and I'm a renter in District 5. I'm here today with KY tenants to express my support for a ban on source of income discrimination. For the last five years, my mother and I have lived together in Lexington as renters. We, along with my father and brother, immigrated to the United States in 1985. My parents lived in Indianapolis for 30 years and when my father passed away, my mother came to be with me here in Lexington. Mom is 73 years old now and relies partly on Social Security for her income. Social Social security is a form of supplemental income that Lexington landlords can currently refuse from tenants. So this is an issue that directly impacts my mother, but in particular, but also me as well. I'm a librarian at UK, and my mother is a retiree with several health issues. As she's aged, it's become increasingly important to me that I be with her to help her as she faces her health issues. But just as important, our combined income simply enable us to live our lives together, support each other and create a home together as we face life's myriad challenges. With the help of my mother's Social Security we've reached a level of housing stability that's allowed us to become part of our community. We know our neighbors and our neighbors know us. They've watered our plants when we've gone out of town and I've picked up books from the library for their children. I've shared the jalapeno peppers from our garden with them and they've let us borrow their lawnmower. My mother and I are becoming rooted in Lexington and in our neighborhood. I want other people in Lexington to have the same choice, same chance at stability, community, and roots as we have. People should not be denied a chance at a decent life or full choice in which neighborhoods are available to them because of where their rent payment comes from. It's not right and it's not fair, so I'm asking council to have tenants backs. City Council must pass this ban on source of income discrimination by the end of this year. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Sharon Price and then Rai Otomo. Good evening, you all. My name is Sharon Price. I am in the 7th District. But I'm here tonight on behalf of Community Action Council because I serve as their Executive Director. And I'm here tonight to ask you to approve a ban on source of income discrimination for rent. As you know, Community Action is a non-profit organization that is designated by the City of Lexington to address poverty. Like so many in this room, Community Action has been on the front line of the housing crisis. As a result of the pandemic, the council has dramatically increased the number of people that we are reaching in with housing services. This work has provided us with valuable insights to the housing challenges that are faced by our community members. Affordability is at an all-time low. In Fayette County, two full-time minimum wage jobs are needed to afford an efficiency apartment at the fair market rate. Households that rely on Social Security can't even afford that, even with two incomes. The most vulnerable people are our low-wage workers, disabled, and the elderly. A ban on source of income discrimination would reduce homelessness and ensure grading housing stability. It would promote diversity and inclusion, fairness and equality. But I want to take a moment just to talk about what it will do for young children, because we serve the Head Start program in Fayette County. There are many things that can affect how a child grows up, but one of the most important things is having a safe and steady place to call home. When families have a home that is stable, it is easier for their kids to do well in life. They can learn and play and grow up feeling safe and secure. So for me, tonight's discussion is not just about income and rent. It's about making sure our youngest neighbors have the best chance possible for success in their lives. Councilman Leach, you led the Housing Subcommittee for the Mayor's Commission on Racial Justice and Equality. I was the chair for the education part of this. For me, those two components are so closely linked, education and housing, because you need one in order to do well in the other. Growing up in a decent, affordable home can make a big difference for children. Research shows us that children facing housing instability are more prone to a wide variety of physical, emotional, developmental, and behavioral effects, including problems with bonding and interacting with their parents, mental health issues, and struggling to handle stress. I believe in this, they're so closely linked. Please, I implore you to vote yes on banning the source of income discrimination. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Ray Utomo and Haley Brotherton. Hi, my name is Ray Utomo. I'm a 25 year old renting in District 3. I've been a renter in Lexington since 2020, but I'm also an immigrant who moved to the United States when I was two years old and am now a naturalized citizen. I work as an immigration paralegal at Kentucky Refugee Ministries, a refugee resettlement agency, and I'm speaking to you as an individual and an advocate for not only my clients, but immigrants as myself to pass a ban on source of income discrimination. Did you know that Kentucky is fourth in the nation for refugee arrivals? We should see it as a privilege and an honor that refugees fleeing war persecution and political upheaval can find a home in Kentucky. And in the true fashion of southern hospitality, we should welcome them with open arms. However, without a ban on source of income discrimination, welcoming these refugees becomes astronomically harder. As many of them use third-party payments, including Kentucky refugee ministries, for rent, and we cannot move them into the stable housing they need and deserve after the trauma they've endured. A ban on source of income discrimination is fundamental to making Lexington a more diverse and equitable place. In Lexington, 76% of Section 8 vouchers are held by black households, and research shows that a ban on source of income discrimination reduces racial segregation. Having to witness my clients day in and day out struggle to find housing is deeply frustrating, and that's even for my clients who are documented. My clients who are undocumented have it much worse. It is worth noting that currently there are well over a dozen of continuum of care housing assistance programs that are available to undocumented immigrants, even though ones run in partnership with the housing authority are not. But these programs cannot run effectively or be reliable for immigrants in Kentucky without a ban on source of income discrimination. I want to be clear that landlords would still be able to choose the best person from their rental application pool. It just means that they wouldn't be able to discriminate against people like my clients further contribute to the lack of opportunity, stability, and dignity that immigrants and people of color face as renters in Lexington. Lexington should be a sanctuary for people who are seeking a better life, but without a ban on source of income discrimination. It is a limbo for low-income families who need housing now. We need this policy, and it is the City Council's responsibility to make sure it passes, so that more Lexingtons can start being stably housed now. Thank you. Thank you. Now we have Holly Bretherton and then Tiffany Yarbrough. Distinguished council members, my name is Hallie Brotherton. I am originally from West Virginia. I have been renting as a student at UK and as a resident of Lexington since 2016 in municipal districts 10 and 3. I am speaking tonight to support a ban on source of income discrimination in Lexington. I am 31 years old, but I have had disabling chronic illnesses since I was 17. Today, I am able to work a part-time job, but this has not always been the case, and it has been a long journey to get here. I must still rely heavily on support from my partner and my parents, and without them, I would not be able to afford to live in Lexington independently. If I were to apply for SSI, my savings would be capped by the federal government, so I would never be able to save enough for a house. and would need to rely on housing vouchers. I would have to wait months to years for a hearing and have my medical and work history viewed and judged whether it was disabled enough. I would also not be able to marry my partner, and because of the invisible nature of my illnesses, I would live in fear of reports of fraud and my assistance revoked. For these reasons, I have chosen not to apply for SSI. I consider myself a fortunate one. I consider myself a fortunate one because I have the option to be supported without SSI. Others have no choice. After the disastrous mismanagement of COVID protections by the federal government in 2020, millions of Americans have been impacted by long COVID and find themselves disabled in ways similar to myself. Chronic fatigue, fainting, and irreversible nervous system damage. They would also come to discover since 2021, COVID era government assistance has continued in American health care system and social care system overburdened and inadequate to meet their needs. Those impacted are being left behind and with no help. This is to say nothing of the disproportionate and long-lasting impact COVID had on black Americans' health and other vulnerable minority communities. How many other Lexington residents cannot support themselves because of the circumstances outside of their control? and how many more are being discriminated against and denied access to their basic needs like housing because they need help to be independent like myself. As a Lexington renter, I am asking you to support the tenants of your districts and pass a ban on source of income discrimination for the end of 2023. Thank you. Thank you. And then next is Tiffany Yarbrough and then Catherine Smith. Okay, is Tiffany out there? Or Catherine? Are you a Catherine? Is Levi House, are you yielding your time? Okay, you could go ahead. You have six minutes. Awesome. So I'll be sharing my story and then someone else's story who wasn't able to make it today. Dear Lexington City Council members, my name is Kat Smith. I've been a renter in Lexington for nine years. Currently live in District 3, but have also rented in District 1 and 5. I'm here today to support a ban on source of income discrimination in Lexington and share a piece of my life that has always felt really vulnerable. When I was a teenager, I was finally told my mom was dealing with some kind of psychosis. This came to light after some pretty traumatic experiences we had when I was about 16, and the truth of the matter came out. She really did the best that she could to raise me. She encouraged me to pursue art and played a big role in teaching me how to have a deep relationship with the natural world, which played a role in the work I do today. But of course, it was really hard to navigate as a teenager in that situation, figuring out how to take care of my mom, and honestly, it's still really hard to navigate today without robust systems of support for her. Because of my mother's health condition, she's not able to work and lost her home to foreclosure when I was younger. She currently gets by on Social Security and is eligible for housing vouchers. To think that she wouldn't be able to use those housing vouchers because of the stigma attached to them breaks my heart. Because most of the time she lives out of her car, I constantly worry about her well-being, if she's being taken advantage of, and honestly how she has to survive navigating a world that doesn't do a good job supporting people with mental health struggles. Having the safety net of housing vouchers and actually being able to use them means my mom could get into a more stable situation and get to a place where she can take better care of her health. As a Lexington renter and the child of someone who can use housing vouchers, I'm asking you to pass a ban on source of income discrimination before the end of 2023. As someone who has been called to pick up my mom, who's squatting in a stranger's barn in nearly freezing temperatures, honestly really worried that she was going to die, we need to put this on the committee's agenda sooner than November, especially as cold winter months approach. This anti-discrimination measure is proactive, preventative, and a crucial step towards keeping our family members housed and our communities together. And I'll now be sharing the story of Matt Del Pielago. He's a resident of District 10. Hello, my name is Matt. I'm a resident of District 10 and have rented in Lexington for a better part of a decade. However, I'm currently living with my family. Because of the continued increase in rental prices we are seeing in Lexington, I am not able to afford rent on top of the other expenses that come with living. While I am fortunate enough to have family who allow me to live with them, I can easily imagine a scenario in which I would rely on housing vouchers to afford a place to live. Were it not for a supportive family, this would be my reality, and I cannot fathom how different my circumstances would be because of income discrimination. The opportunities available to me would completely change based on what limited housing I would have access to, and this would in turn change my reality. I think everyone can agree that no one's opportunity for basic human need should be determined by what housing they have access to. I want to know that if worse comes to worse, there would be a safety net of rental assistance to support me. I would not be a citizen of the city and district today if housing vouchers were not available. I'm a first-generation American born of immigrants on my mother's side. My family immigrated from Peru in the 1970s, and, as is the case with nearly every immigrant story, spent everything they had to get here. Through the overwhelming generosity shown to them by their new compatriots, they were put in touch with a law firm who in turn directed them towards government-assisted living. This stability allowed them to remain as citizens of this country and for my mother to grow up, become a nurse, and eventually afford a place of her own. Without housing aid, my family never would have been able to afford to stay here, and I would not reside in this wonderful city and district or really exist at all. This story is not unique to my family, and I urge you to consider the countless families of immigrants who would not be here today were it not for housing vouchers. Immigrants who enrich our city and grow and give back to the community if given the resources, as my mother has done, as I have done, and as my family will continue to do for generations. Lexington is more than happy to show pride in its Latina population with events like the Latino Festival. So why not truly support these citizens where it matters most? By providing housing stability for immigrants and their families, this is why we need a ban on source of income discrimination to be passed by the end of the year. Thank you. Thank you. Next, one more call for Tiffany Yarbrough. Okay. Okay, then next is Jim McKenzie. Is Ron Johnson here? Mr. McKenzie, is Ron Johnson here? No. No, okay, then you will have three minutes. Hey, thank you for having me. Jim McKenzie, District 8. Thank you for having me. Hey, you know what, I've been listening back here. I was going to bring some notes and think about what's going on, but I'm not a really great speaker. speaker, but I've got to say, all the tenant association, they've had some great stories. They all have the same great stories. Housing is a, you know, it's housing is human right. You guys have got great stories. And you know what? This has almost come between, like, you guys and landlords. Like, I'm a landlord. And you think it's between us. It's not against us. We're working on the same team. Please speak into the microphone so everyone can hear. We're both working on the same team, both the landlords and you guys as the tenants. We're working on the same teams. Tonight I was in here asking a lot of you guys, I said, how long have you been on Section 8? A lot of you guys are not even on Section 8. And I was asking you, how many of you have other vouchers? And like you said, well, I'm not on any voucher at all. The problem in Lexington, Kentucky, is we only have 3,500 Section 8 vouchers. Out of that, about 2,900, we've learned this from our last meeting, 2,900 are single black females. So it's not discrimination. There's no discrimination going on. Us landlords want to take them. I'm actively looking for them. When somebody comes up to look for me, looking for an apartment, I'm working on my apartments, and I'm working late at night because I'm a landlord. I got my full-time job, another job, another job. I got people calling me left and right. One of my biggest things is, do you got a Section 8 voucher? Because I'm kind of looking for that. I know the program. I like the program. And I'm willing to take it. During COVID, one of the – I'm not going to call out any names. One of the council members reached out to me. He goes, Jim, man, we got to really spread this home stabilization program thing because this is going to keep people from getting – you know, landlords from getting foreclosures and this. We spread it like wildfire. and we all took it and was glad to take it it was a great it was a great blessing it was so great and was so successful i think lexington was number one in taking this thing we were number one because we all worked together all of us worked together lexington is awesome but the thing i see tonight is we have a lot of tenants that have a lot of hard stories but here's the bottom line this is by passing this and i think everybody's been strong-arming all you guys it's not going to change anything. We still only have 3,500 vouchers and one voucher. Even when they pass this, nothing's going to change. The statistics, I talked to one of the tenants and I was telling her, she was saying, she goes, I'm out. I'm talking to the tenants and they got black mode. They got this. I said, but the problem is it's not going to change anything. She almost broke down in tears. I said, I understand. It's very frustrating. It's hard to keep a roof over people's heads. It takes me two jobs and I'm paying part of the mortgage. That mortgage is not free. They think the landlords own them. No, we don't. They're all leveraged. Everything's leveraged. So my thing to you guys is this is not going to change anything. The heads of the people in the know. Please address the council. Oh, the people in the know. You're speaking to the council. Oh, I'm out of time. Oh, I wish I had three more minutes now. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Zoe Langley and Andrew Russell English. My name is Zoe Langley. I live in a subsidized apartment in District 3. I support a ban on source of income discrimination. I grew up in the segregated South in the 50s and 60s. The infamous poll tax meant to prevent African Americans from voting was in force. I have vivid memories of my parents being denied the right to vote. We were poor whites and could not afford to pay the poll tax. The poll tax discriminated against all poor Americans. This deprived the majority of African Americans from voting. Racial segregation was done to law. The 1968 Fair Housing Act prohibited discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, sex. It was later amended to include family status and handicap, but not the poor. In 1974, Section 8 housing vouchers became available, but there was still no law to protect the poor from housing discrimination. This oversight continued to permit racial and other types of discrimination in housing. Other states, counties, and cities have addressed this oversight by banning source of income discrimination. Lawsuits are succeeding in challenging using Section 8 vouchers to discriminate against numbers of protected groups. Just about a year ago, the Attorney General's office in Washington, D.C. awarded $10 million in the largest civil award and housing discrimination case in U.S. history. The lawsuit was brought by Section 8 voucher holders. Allowing landlords to refuse to accept Section 8 vouchers enables them to carry on as in the Jim Crow law area. Without the ban, it is more difficult to determine when a landlord is discriminating against a member of a protected class. Banning source of income discrimination will make it more difficult to discriminate against Section 8 voucher holders of all protected groups and the poor as well. This will serve to make low income housing in Fayette County more truly fair. fair. Thank you. Next is Andrew Russell English and then Johnna Workentine. Thanks y'all. I'm Andrew Russell English. I live in the 1st District and my family rents farmland in 12th District. One thing I want to point out that nobody said is that as rents have increased astronomically in Lexington so have the values of rental properties. I want to say that. This seems to me like it's a debate between people struggling to keep a roof over their head and people who own more than one house. I remember many council members speaking passionately about the need to expand the urban services boundary to address affordable housing. Anyone with those concerns has every reason to vote to ban source of income discrimination. In Lexington, we, including myself, are awfully proud of our record of undoing discriminatory policies. Let's undo this one now. Thank you. John O'Workentine and then Clay Neiman. Hello, can you hear me? Okay. Hello, my name is John O'Workentine. I'm a former student at UK, a Kentuckian for almost all of my life, and a renter in District 3. I work at Village Library here in Lexington, and I'm also a substitute for FCPS. I currently make a little over $1,000 a month and live paycheck to paycheck. However, despite this, I'm still incredibly lucky that I have a place to live. This place, though, is one that I can barely afford, that I spend over 50% of my monthly pay on. My rent continues to climb year after year, and this has been an incredible source of stress on my life. There have been many nights I've gone to sleep fearing eviction and losing my apartment. I support a ban of source of income discrimination because in the event that the absolute worst happens, that I lose my housing, there will still be help available through rental assistant programs. At my job at Village Library, an enormous portion of my day is spent helping our patrons not with accessing materials, our books and movies and magazines, but with services, with printing and with applications. A majority of these applications are related to housing. I have spoken to many different people from all over this city through my job and their experiences trying to find housing on these vouchers And the stories I've heard of the long days spent searching online and in person, the dozens and dozens and dozens of applications that I've helped with, and the infuriating and blatant discrimination simply based on their housing status would chill you to your bones. These are families, mothers and children, citizens of this city. It makes me angry, furious even, that after all the effort we spend helping these people, that they will have to wait a tedious amount of time to get approved and then will face the months-long impossible ordeal of finding a place to stay. The fact is that the vast majority of landlords and companies holding housing stock here in Lexington blatantly say on their listings that they do not accept housing vouchers or Section 8. This means that in the event that you need this kind of support, like many of the stories I've heard, there's no way to actually use it to find housing, as currently landlords are legally allowed to discriminate against you. There is little to no evidence that passing this ban will increase rents. Louisville passed this ordinance, and since then, rents have not increased or are barely higher or are basically equivalent to increases in Lexington. If we want to combat homelessness and housing insecurity in Lexington, if we want to make this city a better place for renters and homeowners alike, a ban on source of income discrimination is a completely necessary and vital step in this direction. And mind you, only a step. There's still more to do. As a constituent in this city, I ask for nothing less. I call for a ban on source of income discrimination by the end of this year. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Clay Neiman. Good evening. My name is Clay Neiman. I live in District 4. We own a handful of houses in town. So when I was 18, I lived in a boy's home. I was a ward of estate. So there's probably not a whole lot of people that are more at risk for being homeless than turning 18, and you're just kind of left with nowhere to go. So I understand this a little bit better than maybe some of the other landlords. So I've been a renter in town. Like I said, I used a VA loan to buy a house. We fixed that up and used the money to buy another house. So I've worked with Section 8, like a lot of landlords, most of the landlords in town have at one point. I worked with HUD-VASH, too, because, you know, that's kind of close and near and dear to me in my heart, right? I had pretty bad experiences both because of the tenants so if you tell me that I have to take section 8 I don't know that I'm gonna be able to afford to keep the property and that's gonna be a whole nother issue that you know gets that we'll talk about in a second so but that wasn't really the straw that broke the camel's back for me having to deal with the section 8 program and the workers were what did it for me because the system is so broke that like a lot of other landlords I just said no thanks I'm not dealing with that anymore because it doesn't work. So you heard from Charlie Lanter that the system is awesome and it only takes a few days and you know all of that. If that was the case there would be a lot of landlords that we're jumping at the program to sign up for it but that's not happening right so um if if we're forced to participate in the program then you're gonna like i don't own a bunch of property i have a handful and there's a lot of other landlords in here tonight that are that feel that this is important enough to come down at you know 6 p.m and stay till 8 to tell you what they think about this right i want to see the program work i want to take care of people and I use a lot of my own personal money to donate to the church to provide charity to do a lot of that work. The government shouldn't be involved in charity because inherently the government doesn't have any money. You don't own any of that. You're, right, it's another issue. But, okay, so if we're forced to participate in that and then I'm forced to sell, every dollar that I make has a velocity that gets spent oftentimes 10 or 12 or 13 times in this community. because that dollar that I make gets spent, the next person spends it again. So when I sell, it's likely not going to be to another mom-and-pop shop. It's going to be to a company like BlackRock. And then all of that money is going to vacate and go somewhere else out to the coast. And then it ends up like Detroit because the population that supports the government through taxes isn't here. Thank you for your time, and let me share mine. Thank you. I'm going to call a brief recess because we've been at this for two hours and we have another hour left. So if everyone will be back in here at 820 sharp, that way some of us can use the restroom. Thank you. Oh, my God. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The End Thank you. Okay, it is 820. I've never done that before. If you could all go back to your seats, that would be great. And we will get this going again. Thank you for your patience. If you are sitting outside still in the mezzanine, there are a few seats in here now because some folks left. So if you want to come inside, feel free to come on in. Yeah. So come on in and join us. So next, if these three people would line up. We have Rance Paxton, Trace Carnahan, and Gary Rowland. is Rance is Rance Paxton in the house? No? No. Okay. Trace Carnahan? Alright, you're up. Alright, I'm going to keep this brief. The cats play at 930, so I'm trying to get home for that. And I appreciate all your time. My name is Trace Carnahan. I live in District 11. I've lived in Lexington for five years now, and I've loved it. And I've been, for the last three years, an essential worker. And for the last three years, I've been hearing my coworkers talk about how they can't find housing anywhere in Lexington. They can't afford to live in Lexington, but they have to work in Lexington because it's the only place with opportunity. And so for three years now, I've watched them work over 40 hours plus, not being able to afford to spend time with their kids, not being able to afford to take any vacation time, all because you have to spend all their time working to try to build towards owning a house or even renting somewhere in Lexington. And so I'm here today to speak on support of a pass on ban of source of income discrimination because I think it's a time to reward these people that just three years ago, just three years ago I could probably go to all your social media, every landlord that's ever walked up here, and they probably made a post praising these people of how they worked hard and how they kept society going when it needed it the most. and it's really sad how three years ago we called these people heroes and now we can't call them our neighbors. Thank you for your time and have a great night. Thank you. Next is Gary Roland. Is Gary Roland here? And then Elysian Fields? Yes? Okay, go ahead. And then next is Emma Anderson. Hi, my name is Elysian Fields and I'm a renter in District 3. I'm here this evening in support of a ban on source of income discrimination. I've been a renter in Lexington for several years now. I have not always been a perfect tenant. I have at times been late with my rent. Being a low income earner, I have previously benefited from rental assistance programs, while thankfully my landlord accepted. I credit my well being today to that assistance. I genuinely don't know where I would be today if I had not received this help. Someone that I care for very deeply was a homeowner in Lexington for 30 years before becoming disabled, retiring and being forced to sell their home. They are now in the process of applying for vouchers and I am assisting them with this arduous, frustrating process. I am afraid for their ability to find affordable, accessible housing. I know that without a ban, this individual will be discriminated against when seeking housing. I appeal to the council to consider humanity and the protection and the safety of vulnerable community members over the assets of individuals who made the decisions to invest in rental properties. This is why I believe a ban on source of income discrimination is necessary by the end of the year. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Emma Anderson and then Kelly Asher. Good evening. My name is Emma. I live in District 5. I'm going to spend a little bit of time providing some counterpoints to some of the things that we've heard tonight, but I wanted to start briefly speaking about why I care about this personally. I grew up in the middle of nowhere, rural Kentucky in Anderson County, and we moved to Lexington when I was in high school. and I had only ever been like around like in a very isolated community um and like um it was when I moved to Lexington it like opened up my world and my first my first boyfriend god love him um lived seven minutes away from me and the reason that relationship work like worked is because we were so close um and he was had his housing voucher and I never would have like dated him or had any kind of relationship with him because neither of us had cars. And so the only way it was going to work is that we could walk. And that relationship taught me so much about the world. It's like the first deeply close relationship I had with somebody who was extremely different than me. I started navigating the differences in our experiences, class and race and gender. and like I'm a better person because I could have that relationship. And the reason that it happened was because he could live near me because he had a housing voucher and somebody took it. And like I think we should live near people that are different than us and we should be able to like understand the experiences of other people. And so like that's what I want for the city. So some of the things that I want to respond to. Oh, man. I guess, actually, I just want to leave it at that. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Kelly Asher and then Adrian Burris. Hello, counsel. My name is Kelly Asher. I am a resident in District 11. I'm also here as a representative of the Homeless and Housing Coalition of Kentucky. Our mission at HHCK is to end the threat of homelessness for all Kentuckians, and that includes Lexingtonians. I want to start with kind of a short story of my own. When I was a junior at Berea College, I was a nontraditional student. who didn't live in the dorms, and so I had to find a place to live. And searching for a place to live that was close to the college as a student resulted in a lot of abruptly ended phone calls. And that experience lasted for weeks. That experience pales in comparison to a lot of the stories that you've heard tonight to the difficulty for folks who receive housing choice vouchers. I am a leasing specialist at HHCK. Finding a property owner who accepts housing vouchers is like striking gold. The process to find someone with professional assistance can take months. Once we find a unit, we can get leased up very quickly and get the inspection done, as long as everything and all the paperwork works out, within about a week. I will say that I believe that a damage claim mitigation fund or something of the like, exploring more landlord incentives, would be something that could benefit in the process in the future for Lexington. I think it's possible to both improve housing choice voucher programs and also pass the ban on income discrimination. as a professional i support a ban on income discrimination as a citizen of lexington i support a ban on income discrimination and i also want to reiterate that the homeless and housing coalition of kentucky supports a ban on income discrimination thank you so very much for your time and i hope you all have a wonderful evening thank you adrian burris and then quinn moholland Hello, my name is Adrian Burris. I'm from District 8 where my parents are homeowners, but I've also rented in Districts 3, 4, and 7. I'm here today with Kentucky Tennis to express my support for a ban on source of income discrimination. I am fortunate enough to have lived in the same house for my entire childhood, to have always had a space that was mine and that felt safe. not all of your constituents have that same privilege. I mentioned that my parents are homeowners because while it may not seem like a big deal to most people, it is a big deal in my family. It's a rarity. Throughout my childhood, many of my extended family lived in their house because they had nowhere else to stay. Many people in my family have been this close to homelessness because they couldn't find a landlord willing to accept vouchers or social security as their source of income. The source of income discrimination in Lexington is racist. 76% of Section 8 voucher holders are black families like people who look like me. It's causing segregation in the city that should have outlawed segregation decades ago. Landlords have claimed that banning source of income discrimination will increase the rent but that's already happening. Rent in Lexington is skyrocketing it's some of the highest in the country for example the apartment I lived in last year has already almost doubled its rent for no reason other than greed I love my city but this is beyond ridiculous my sister is a single mother who requires financial assistance she and my two-year-old nephew have moved three times since he was born because they have not either been able to afford their rent or find an apartment who will accept her rental assistance. I think that my nephew deserves to have the same stability of housing that I had as a child. No matter how they pay for it, every renter deserves to have a nice home to go to every night, just like each one of you will after this. We need to have a ban on source of income discrimination by the end of the year. Thank you. Thank you. Now Quinn Mulholland and then John Winstead. Hello. My name is Quinn Mulholland. I live in District 5, and I'm going to read some comments from two people who weren't able to be here tonight. The first is from Courtney, who lives in District 11. Thank you for listening today. According to an immediate relative who lives in HUD housing in another county, their landlord has failed to resolve a persistent leak in the neighbor's bathroom that caused a puddle at the bottom of their stairs. They slipped in it, which resulted in injuries and a hospital visit. They've also had untreated roaches and a moldy window that's yet to be replaced. My relatives experience is a direct example of how housing is a social determinant of health, meaning that the quality of home and the neighborhood in which we live affects our health outcomes. This individual has been on the Section 8 wait list for three years. They finally received their paperwork in the last few months, and it is my utmost concern that she accesses housing that meets criteria specific to her mobility and her access to transportation. These criteria will be hard to meet in a market that permits landlords to withhold housing access to someone based on their source of income because it leaves so few units for Housing Choice Voucher renters to choose. While individual landlord decisions may appear benign, the collective result is that specific populations, Black and Latino families, trans and LGBTQ individuals, single-family households, are most likely to be excluded from housing. Further, they're often excluded from neighborhoods that have the best access to resources, services, and community engagement opportunities. Our community stands to benefit from this ban. The Moving to Opportunity study tested the effects of moving poor families into non-poor neighborhoods and showed that when families move from high poverty areas to low poverty areas, children are more likely to attend college, have a higher income, and are less likely to be single parents. In short, desegregating families by class and income has lasting positive effects. Today, Lexington has the opportunity to be sure that people can access their housing regardless of their source of income. A housing choice voucher isn't really a choice when it expires if you don't have a place to live within 60 days and the bulk of property owners are allowed to deny you access because of your source of income. I'm asking you to support a ban on source of income discrimination, setting example for communities across Kentucky. The second comment comes from Davita Gatewood, who lives in District 2. My name is Davita Gatewood and I'm the housing chair of the NAACP and a community advocate. I apologize for not being present. My daughter is preparing for cheer regionals at Frederick Douglass High School. My family has dealt with housing insecurity for the past two years. My kids have been forced to leave their schools, neighborhoods, friends, and are now just getting used to our new routine. We are looking at being uprooted again. We, like many other families, are fighting to keep our housing because of the lack of affordable housing in Lexington. We lost our housing last year, and due to discriminatory practices, it took my family over nine months to find safe, affordable housing. Please pass a source of income discrimination ban by the end of the year. Thank you. Thank you. Next is John Winstead and then Catherine Copeland and then Lucy O'Neill. You are Catherine Copeland and you want to cede it to John. John, you have six minutes. My name is John. Oh, sorry. My name is John Winstead. I'm a renter in District 10. I'm a graduate student of computational linguistics at the University of Kentucky. I've lived in Lexington for the last eight years, and that time I've lived in five different places because of how bad it is to find affordable housing in Lexington. Recently, I had to leave a place on the north side where I was paying $850 in rent, the cheapest place I could find. When I moved into that place in December, two and a half years ago, the gas wasn't hooked up. I waited a month in below freezing weather for the landlord to finally get around to installing the heat. That set the tone for my entire time at that place. Despite the terrible conditions, I was stuck there for two and a half years because it was the only thing I could afford. Three months ago, I asked a friend who owns his home if I could move in with him. Shout out to my boy Connor, you're the only good landlord I've had, and that's how I was finally able to move out of that terrible place. But that's not a solution to the systemic problem of housing affordability in this city. We can't all just find a friend with a house. There are many in our community who are also grappling with housing affordability, some of whom are dependent on sources of income that can be discriminated against by landlords. I've heard landlords say that they are not discriminating against anyone when they deny Section 8. That's just an effect of impersonal market forces, supply and demand, et cetera. Landlords think that when they change the names of things, they have changed the things themselves. They may be able to change the words they use to describe their discrimination, but that does not change the families who are forced to live out of their car because of that discrimination. They cannot change the effects their discrimination has on our neighbors, on my friends, on the people I care about. It can only change words. City council members, you have the ability to do the right thing. And where I'm from, if you have the ability to do the right thing, you have the responsibility to do the right thing. So do the right thing. Ban income discrimination before the end of the year so no one else has to live in the cold during the winter. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Lucy O'Neill and then Tamika Jackson. They're not here. Okay. Okay, and then next is Kenny Jenkins and then Chris Primo. You're up. All right, hi, my name is Tamika Jackson. I'm a homeowner in District 6. I'm also a social worker with over 20 years of experience working here. I have assisted clients from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, obtain employment, housing, and basic necessities. And housing should be a basic necessity. My clients would discuss the feelings of defeat and failure when simply trying to find a home and keep their head above water. This was especially heartbreaking when housing was a factor in having the custody of their children returned. I urge you all to pass a ban on source of income discrimination by the end of the year. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Kenny Jenkins, there he is, and then Chris Primo. Sorry, got up too fast. Thank you distinguished panel for inviting us. I am Kenneth Jenkins, I live in District 1. I'm also a member of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. We kind of advocate for audacious goal of a progressive Kentucky. So I would like to appeal to you all in that regard, a progressive Kentucky. I am also in the capacity of a disabled recipient of Section 8. I require quality housing, free of mold, and so forth. I heard a lot of talk from the landlords whose main objective of opposition to me seemed to be money. Mine is a little bit different. The passing, I support the passing of the source of income. Discrimination because it means the difference between life or death for me. A lot of people probably can't wrap their head around that, so let me explain. In order for me to live, I need oxygen. At home, I have to plug it in. With the cost of utilities rising, rent rising, being on section eight as being a disabled person who can only legally work 20 hours. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. I have, let me catch my breath. I have a decision to make when it comes to quality safe housing. For me, it's important, like I tried to express, I can't take secondary housing with unsafe conditions and so forth. I just want to live like everybody else. And so I, again, standing in support of income discrimination for the demographic that has my face, the disabled people who are willing to work but are unable to. And we just want to move in unison with Kentuckians toward that progressive goal. So thank you. Have a good day. Thank you. Next is Chris. There we go. Okay. And then Nikita Permumal. Sorry, guys, if I'm butchering names here. Barbara Sutherland. After that. Hi, my name is Chris Primo. Good job. I'm going to pronounce my name right. I live in District 1, and I also work in District 1. I work for Arbor Youth Services. I've been there for 10 years. We are a homeless shelter here in Lexington for kids and young adults ages birth through 24 years of age. We provide 18 to 24 year olds with rapid rehousing vouchers. Without these vouchers, they would not have a chance to grow and become stable. I support a ban on source of income discrimination. Housing homeless individuals, especially young adults ages 18 to 24, present several challenges. One of the challenges is just their age. That alone has made it hard to house these young adults. When you add source of income discrimination it makes it even harder. These young adults because of limited housing choice are forced to remain homeless. It also makes it harder for them to find housing near jobs that give them the ability to afford their housing once their voucher runs out. Jobs that are also hard to come by for an 18 year old. I can't begin to count the amount of phone calls I and my staff and my young adults make to all the available units to only hear we don't accept rapid rehousing vouchers we need to ban source of income discrimination so these young adults can find the housing they so desperately need so they don't become chronically homeless thank you Thank you. Next, Nikita and then we have Barbara Sutherland and Nolan Adams. Hello everyone, my name is Nikita Perumal. I am a renter in district three. I was going to share some of my personal story today with you all, but I'm actually going to share that for a future city council meeting. Because I do want to speak to some of the talking points we've heard from landlords today and just go through a couple of them one by one. The first is we've heard from a number of landlords that the threat that rent will go up if we pass this policy. I want to really encourage council to count on data and facts and statistics and not anecdotal threats. We at Kentucky Tenants have done a rigorous set of research that we, I believe, have emailed to almost all of city council. That includes a regression analysis of the nine states that have passed this policy. The regression analysis shows very clearly there is no relationship between whether a state has passed a ban on source of income discrimination and whether it compared to average rent increases. If rent has increased faster, slower, or at any different rate. Rent is going up across the country. do not contest that but it is quite a stretch to claim without any evidence that just because Louisville's rent has gone up that it is because of their policy. There's also been a lot of arguments that there's just better options out there than this particular ban on source of income discrimination. Robert Jones of the Central Kentucky Apartment Association said that the proposed language would not increase affordable housing stock for instance. I I just want to remind us, the housing crisis is literally a crisis. There will never be one policy that solves all of our problems. This is one common sense, simple policy that can make a tangible difference in the lives of 1,000 Lexingtonians this year, rather than leaving tenants to wait for a trickle of new affordable housing units to come online. And for what it's worth, this policy would increase affordable housing stock that is available to voucher holders this year. And I think that's important. We've also just heard inspectors are hard, dealing with the housing authority is hard. From what we understand of the inspection process, it's basic. It's outlets work, doors and windows work, faucets work, it's visibly clean, there's no obvious hazard. These are just the basic standards that I would hope all landlords in Lexington are willing to engage with. And the housing authority has already streamlined the certification process by allowing landlords to self-certify more kinds of these repairs. In general, I've noticed that the preponderance of arguments made today are against the housing authority's program and some inefficiencies there. That's not what today's hearing is about. It's not about, we have not heard any meaningful arguments against the effectiveness of a ban on sorts of income discrimination, which ultimately so much research shows makes a huge difference in the lives of everyday tenants like me. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Barbara Sutherland and Nolan Adams and then Sarah Moyer. Hello, my name is Barbara Sutherland. I'm retired. I live in the 9th district. During my career, I worked for the Urban County Council and then for Mayor Pam Miller, and later I was a public librarian. In the summer of 2020, a friend and I began studying residential segregation in Lexington. We learned that segregation here did not happen by accident or simply as a matter of personal preference. It was intentional, and for most of the 20th century, it was legal. Right here in Lexington, the government, local institutions, and private interests segregated our neighborhoods, denied home ownership opportunities to African Americans, and destroyed some black neighborhoods. And they did this through racially restrictive deed covenants, redlining, steering by realtors, urban renewal, and by other means. Restrictive deed covenants, which were widespread in Lexington during the first half of the 20th century, prevented homeowners from selling or renting their property to African Americans. So far, we have found restrictive covenants in all of the pre-1948 neighborhoods we have studied. We haven't studied all the neighborhoods. We're still working on it. Redlining was the practice of denying home loans based on race. The impact of redlining was huge from the 1930s to the 1960s. Many white working families bought homes for the first time thanks to low cost FHA loans. Most of those homes have now appreciated many times over, helping create family wealth that continues to pass down through generations. Redlining denied black families the same wealth building opportunities. Realtors helped perpetuate segregation by steering white families away from black neighborhoods and vice versa. For many years, the Realtors Code of Ethics required these practices. In 1968, the National Fair Housing Act made realtors steering illegal. I'm going to start talking really fast. The patterns of segregation and discrimination that started in the past prevented black wealth development and affected black families' abilities to own homes today. Lexington's black households own their own homes at less than half the rate of white households. One result is that many more black than white families must rent their homes. The library's community reads book this year was The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein. If you haven't read it, I urge you to do so. Rothstein and his daughter Leah have written a new book, Just Action, which is about how to remedy decades of discrimination. One tactic, a mobility approach, involves opening up previously all white neighborhoods to diverse home buyers and renters through several means, including subsidies. But those subsidies can only work if they are accepted as legitimate sources of income. Thank you. Thank you. Nolan Adams and then Sarah Moyer. Hello, my name is Nolan Adams. I live in the 8th District. I'm here with KY tenants to give a public comment in support of the ban on source of income discrimination. I'm lucky enough to not have to use a housing voucher, but I have met many who do, many of which have families they must provide for as well. We should not further restrict people who already are struggling to find the means to put a roof over their head. Every human being needs shelter, just like they need food or water. and denying people housing based on the way in which they can pay for it is an inhumane system. Many of the voucher users who are able to are workers with wages that have not adjusted to the rising inflation. People that work hard to keep their homes but still need vouchers to supplement their stagnant wages. They do everything society will tell them is the right thing to do but are still not able to meet their basic need of housing. Should they be denied housing because a landlord doesn't want to accept rent that comes from or partially comes from a government program? Why shouldn't they be able to afford to live in our city? Since 2020, the population of Lexington has declined by around 1,800 people. And I don't think it's a coincidence that this city also has the highest rise in rent than any other major city. People can't afford to live here and have to leave regardless of what they want to do. We need to protect the citizens of our city from the dangerous upcoming temperatures and pass the ban on source of income discrimination before the end of the year. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have, is Sarah Moyer here? Okay. And then after Sarah is Ian Mooney. Hello. Hello, my name is Sarah Moyer. I am a resident in district one and I am also a landlord for a property in district five. Being a landlord, you might assume which side I am here to support, you would probably be wrong. I wholeheartedly support a ban on source of income discrimination. Housing is a life or death situation. For anyone struggling, finding a home is the first step to stability, the first step to safety and building a future. Most of my generation will never own property if things continue as they are. I recognize wholeheartedly that I am a significant outlier because not only do I own property but I am able to rent it out. But I am not special. I do not work harder than those in my community. I am simply lucky, ludicrously lucky, and I have a responsibility to acknowledge that inequality. My standing here is the bare minimum. Landlords have a responsibility to their communities. Landlords have a responsibility to not discriminate. It is that simple. It really is that simple. I've heard a lot of landlords complain about bad tenants as an example. This is a blatant generalization and it is incredibly reckless. The reality of being a landlord is that you might have bad tenants. I know a trust fund kid, for instance, who threw parties every weekend and the house was trashed. I know a quote-unquote respectable older couple who trashed my grandparents' rental property because they ran humidifiers and misted their plants too much. There was so much mold, they almost had to rip the drywall out. I could go on. The point is, this is part of being a landlord. This is the risk you knowingly signed up for, and denying renters on the basis of their source of income is discrimination. There is no argument there. Now, as the cost of housing has skyrocketed and wages remain stagnant, we are hurtling towards a larger crisis. We should be thankful renters don't demand a part of the equity they build for us. This is a first step. This is an easy step. The choice is obvious. Support a ban on source of income discrimination. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have Ian Mooney and then Austin Sims. Good evening, friends and council members. My name is Ian Mooney. I'm a veteran of the United States Army, and I teach philosophy at the university. We stand before a major crisis in the U.S. American practice of democracy. Homelessness is dangerously endemic, and political peril, violent conflict, and environmental collapse is drastically changing the flow of human migration. On top of that, confidence in government institutions is at an all-time low, and at least the House of Representatives, but arguably multiple branches of government have become hostile and dysfunctional, as factious greed replaces solidarity and camaraderie. Our nation is changing. As we struggle to cope with the unwilled adjacency that is the basic component of social and economic life, that economic life is organized too, I'll say, not set in stone, not ordained by God. Indeed, what is ordained by God is that we extend the desire for peace and justice beyond the borders of ourself, or indeed the nation, but I digress. We're gathered here today because we have the capacity and the responsibility to determine a moral means of organizing housing in this city. So the question seems to me, which of the Lexingtonians do we think deserve a home, or which Lexingtonians deserve to not worry about the stability of that home. So long as we recognize that it's good and moral to use municipal power to support Lexingtonians in the search for stable housing, and I think that's good, we should do that, then we must endeavor to make that uniform, universal, and simple. That would be the democratic response, one that sees the multiplicity of circumstances which make up the lives of Lexingtonians and says, you are all worthy, all welcome. This city is ours together. I mentioned earlier unwilled adjacency. Again, I'll say that we do not get to control the entirety of our material circumstances, be they unexpected illnesses, costly accidents, or institutional prejudice. and yet we must live together. We are all here now and now the challenge is to rise to the high calling of compassionate response in spite of the allure of profit and there's ample profit for some. In the business of housing, there's ample profit in the business of housing. Therefore, I urge the council to support the ban on source of income discrimination. I pray that God grants you all wisdom and compassion. Thank you. Thank you. Next is Austin Sims. Is Aldean Pleasant here? Are you giving your three minutes? Okay. And then Andrea Wilson. Okay. So, Mr. Sims, you have nine minutes. I won't need nine minutes, I'll show you. I am Austin Sims, Executive Director of the Lexington Housing Authority. With me here tonight is Aldean Pleasant, our Housing Choice Voucher Manager, and Andrea Wilson, our Chief Operating Officer. Let me take this opportunity to thank the Council for allowing me to weigh in on this source of income discussion. In particular, let me share my appreciation to each of you, having allowed me an opportunity to discuss with you on an individual basis affordable housing issues. There's been much discussion over the past several months relating to the proposed ordinance under consideration relating to a source of income discrimination. Much discussion has centered more on the quality and effectiveness of the Housing Authority's voucher program than on the issues of discrimination addressed in this ordinance. Please allow me just a moment to bifurcate the two issues. While typically I am not required or even asked to opine my position relating to ordinances, it has become clear that in this situation it is important to share my position and that of the housing authority. Let there be no mistake, I stand against discrimination that prevents any person from having access to their basic needs. It should be very clear that the Housing Authority and I personally have always fought against discrimination toward those that we serve. We have challenged the NIMBY concept, Deconcentrated Affordable Housing in this community, placing it in most zip codes in Lexington. We have proclaimed affordable housing is all over town and have built developments indistinguishable from the private sector. The Housing Authority has sought every dollar available to increase opportunities for those who need and wish to take advantage of affordable housing in this community. We have done all that is possible to remove the stigma that often goes along with affordable housing. So I would hope that any reasonable person would understand that I and the Housing Authority, as long-time affordable housing advocates, oppose discrimination. And if that is what this ordinance is about, you can bet we support it. And now to the other issue, only if this ordinance is passed will we be able to determine its benefits, if it benefits the voucher program in the future. And I certainly hope that it does. Allow me just a moment, if you will, to defend or at least clarify this federally funded program, which has been under siege from those who oppose your ordinance. The Housing Choice Voucher is a $25 million federally funded annual program to provide affordable housing in this community. It comes with rules and regulations. As bureaucratic as it may be, the rules and the regulations must be adhered to. All rental units must be inspected, must meet housing quality standards, and must charge a reasonable rent as determined not by us but by the federal government. These rules benefit the recipients as well as the landlords. Our participants are ensured that the units they select are no longer substandard. Our participating landlords are ensured of a monthly housing assistance payment from the housing authority. This city also benefits by having an enhanced portfolio of rental property. The Housing Authority now serves 3,567 families with vouchers and thanks to some 700 plus landlords for participating in this program. We have 11 special partners serving clients with a wide range of needs, from those who have been sexually exploited to those who are seeking secondary degrees as single parents, to those who have suffered from domestic violence, and to those who are now recovering from addiction. We are also pleased that we serve some 300 veterans in this community. So in conclusion, I know that our voucher program is well managed, and it is an excellent resource in providing affordable housing for Lexington, Kentucky. I would encourage landlords to abandon or ignore the rhetoric and misinformation that they've heard about this program over the past several months and simply trials. That's it, just simply trials. I ask anyone with questions about our voucher program to come directly to the source for answers. And those sources are the three A's, Austin, Aldine, and Andrea. Thank you. Thank you. That comes to the end of our special meeting for public comments. I want to take this moment to thank each of you that spent so much time with us this evening and prepared very thoughtful words for us. We had a really great turnout, so I want to thank you all for that. And I want to thank my colleagues. I don't know if you all realize it, but there's several council members up here that don't serve on this committee that came and spent the evening here. So thank you to each of you. this ordinance will be considered at our next social services and public safety committee meeting and if there's no objections we are adjourned thank you Thank you.