It took talking to other renters struggling to find housing for Tymikee Brown to realize she wasn’t alone. 

As a social work student and intern at the housing nonprofit Northside Community Resources, she heard from other renters rejected by landlords who didn’t want to accept Housing Choice Vouchers, colloquially known as Section 8. Brown was also searching for a landlord who would accept her housing voucher. She estimated she was turned down by about 20 landlords. 

Being repeatedly rejected “made me feel bad,” Brown told Prism. “They had this misconception that if you had Section 8, you were [in] poverty. You were nothing. You were a bad seed.”

With the help of Northside Community Resources, Brown decided to file complaints against some of the landlords who rejected her for having a housing voucher. 

She was one of hundreds of people who filed complaints with the Chicago Commission on Human Relations (CCHR) against landlords between January 2018 and March 2025. According to records obtained by Prism, the CCHR received more than 300 complaints alleging discrimination based on source of income during that time period. 

While filing complaints with CCHR offers a pathway toward justice for source-of-income discrimination, the long wait times for cases further delay Housing Choice Voucher holders’ process of finding a place to live. The city of Chicago’s practice of levying relatively low fines and allowing the use of confidential settlements also enables landlords to evade accountability, advocates told Prism. 

Attorneys and advocates who’ve helped renters file complaints with the agency allege that CCHR has limited resources at its disposal, which they say has led to a large backlog of cases. The city of Chicago has steadily increased CCHR’s budget from $2.4 million in 2019 to $3.3 million in 2024. However, according to the agency, the department only has six investigators working cases. 

In a statement to Prism, Kenneth Gunn, first deputy commissioner at CCHR, denied that the agency had a backlog of complaints and said that the agency is “able to keep pace with the complaints being filed with our existing staff of investigators.”

As of May 2, CCHR had 226 cases pending in its pipeline, 188 of which were at the investigation stage, according to a weekly report obtained via an open records request. On average, each investigator had 31 discrimination cases to sift through, and the commission had at least 32 remaining investigations that began prior to 2023, records show.

In addition to source-of-income discrimination complaints, CCHR investigators are also working on cases related to other forms of housing discrimination, as well as employment and public-accommodation discrimination cases, said Allison Bethel, director of the Fair Housing Legal Clinic at the University of Illinois–Chicago. 

For context, the agency’s existing investigators are tasked with investigating housing, employment, and other discrimination complaints in a city with more than 2.7 million people. Meanwhile, the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) had more than 42,000 people receiving Housing Choice Vouchers as of last year, 88.9% of whom were Black and 82.8% of whom were women, according to the CHA’s website.  

‘Little to no risk’ for landlords 

Renters who’ve been rejected after disclosing their voucher status can file a complaint with CCHR online or in person at the commission’s office. After filing a complaint, the commission will review the supporting documentation and decide whether to accept the complaint. If accepted, the landlord can then respond to the allegation, and the complainant can reply to the landlord’s response and submit any additional supporting documentation, according to the commission’s website.  

Of more than 300 source-of-income complaints filed with CCHR between January 2018 and March 2025, only seven complainants received rulings from the commission. In the few cases when landlords were found to have discriminated against voucher holders, the city of Chicago collected $4,750 in fines, records show. 

Meanwhile, individual complainants received between $3,000 and $54,015 in compensation from landlords for punitive damages, emotional distress, and attorneys’ fees. For the few complainants who received a ruling for or against them, the wait times ranged from one year to over six years, the commission’s ruling records show. 

Although CCHR has publicly ruled on a few cases in recent years, it is more common for these cases to be settled privately. Still, even cases settled privately take significant time, according to records from CCHR. Between March 2014 and October 2024, 208 housing discrimination cases were settled. This included cases involving source-of-income discrimination. On average, it took more than a year from the time the complaint was filed to the time a settlement was reached. A majority of complaints—76.9%—took more than three months to settle, an analysis of housing discrimination data found.

Based on her experience with CCHR, Micaela Alvarez said it seems the agency’s investigators are doing their best to work through a backlog of cases. Alvarez is program counsel at the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, which provides pro bono legal aid and advocates for fair and affordable housing, among other efforts. Stretching the limited resources they have, it takes time for CCHR investigators to review and dismiss or substantiate the complaints they receive, she said.  

Because landlords have the opportunity to respond after a complaint is filed with CCHR, which often triggers the complainant to reply to the landlord’s response with further evidence of their claim, Alvarez said these interactions can be very lengthy. Witnessing them play out has led her to better understand the challenges CCHR investigators face.

“In the course of those … many filings, you will have interactions with the investigator who is assigned to your case, and I’ve just received pretty clear communication from investigators that says, ‘I work on cases in the order in which they’re filed. And I’m still working on cases from 2022; I’m not going to get to your claim for a while,” Alvarez said. “I think it’s just a matter of staffing and resources.”

Other agencies tasked with investigating discrimination complaints also lack the resources to investigate claims in a timely fashion. In some instances, they take even longer than CCHR, said Michael Chavarria, executive director of the Hope Fair Housing Center, which fights housing discrimination. In his experience as a housing advocate, he has seen complainants face delays at other government agencies, including the Illinois Department of Human Rights (IDHR) or the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). 

In his experience, HUD and the IDHR “are very slow, and it’s similar. It’s just resources,” Chavarria explained. “It’s not will. It’s not the skills or abilities of the staff. It’s just that there’s not enough of them.”

Complainants are entitled to compensation for attorneys’ fees and costs, as well as the economic harm and emotional distress they experienced. But because it often takes a year or more to substantiate their claim, many opt to settle the claim and move on, Alvarez said. 

“Renters with vouchers wait years for resolution of their complaints for source-of-income discrimination. The process is so slow and frustrating,” Alvarez said. “Many give up. And I would say landlords know they can unlawfully refuse voucher holders with little to no risk.”

While financial settlements can benefit a client, the settlement often amounts to “peanuts,” Bethel said—and these small settlements ultimately don’t deter landlords from engaging in similar behavior in the future. Confidential settlements also don’t provide a precedent to work from for future cases, the Fair Housing Legal Clinic director told Prism.

Shi, who is using a pseudonym, has filed numerous complaints with CCHR against Chicago landlords for refusing to rent to her due to her Housing Choice Voucher. In one complaint, she alleged that she inquired about an apartment on Zillow priced at $2,100 per month, but she received a reply stating, “We are no[t] certified for CHA. Good luck!”

Shi has also pushed back against landlords who add confidentiality clauses to their settlement agreements. 

“It’s my God-given [First] Amendment right,” Shi said. “For so long, you have to hush or we’re considered combative or unapproachable, because we speak up for ourselves.”

Greater accountability is possible when CCHR initiates or joins someone else’s case and pursues it even after a client decides to settle the case. If the commission does so, it can push the landlord to make policy changes and potentially prevent future discrimination, Bethel said.

Once CCHR investigators substantiate a claim, and the landlord finally comes to the bargaining table, the two parties can settle, but those settlements often come with a confidentiality agreement. While the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights typically counsels complainants not to agree to confidentiality clauses, the organization also pushes landlords to change their policies, require their employees to undergo fair housing training, and extend new policies across their entire real estate portfolio, Alvarez said.

“Imagine being discriminated against for five years ”

As CCHR’s bureaucratic process of addressing discrimination claims drags on in the background, Housing Choice Voucher holders endure the stress of a tight deadline to secure safe, affordable housing.

According to the CHA website, voucher holders have 120 days after receiving a voucher to look for a place and submit a completed Request for Tenancy Approval packet to the department.

Beyond the CHA’s deadline, Brown needed to relocate to escape dire living conditions.  Her apartment building in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood had a rodent and roach infestation and the heat malfunctioned, leaving her freezing in the winter, she recalled. 

When she complained about the heat issue to the city, a city inspector examined the unit and ultimately fined the landlord. In retaliation, Brown’s landlord threatened to evict her if she reported the unit again.

Looking back on the complaint-filing process, Brown said her experience with CCHR was fair, but she wished more people knew they could file complaints to advocate for themselves. She credits her time as an intern with the Northside Community Resources with helping her assert her rights.

While looking for a landlord who would accept her voucher, Brown kept a notebook of rentals where she applied—a list that helped her later file complaints if she was rejected for having a Housing Choice Voucher. 

Today, she’s a homeowner in a suburb of Chicago, but she credits the voucher program for helping her ultimately achieve her goals, including the three degrees she’s earned in recent years. 

“I had a plan. I stuck to it,” Brown said. “Give [voucher] recipients a chance.”

Though Brown made it out of her situation, she noted that other people may not be able to exit the program, depending on their life circumstances. 

“The landlord has a responsibility and a duty, you know, to uphold a safe living condition,” she said.

Beyond CCHR, the Cook County Commission on Human Rights and IDHR also accept complaints regarding source-of-income discrimination. While the city of Chicago outlawed source-of-income discrimination in 1999, the Illinois Human Rights Act was also expanded in January 2023 to include protection against source-of-income discrimination. The change provided another potential pathway for renters to file complaints against landlords. 

For voucher holders who’ve navigated a long complaint process, finally coming to a settlement can feel both emotional and unsatisfactory, especially for renters repeatedly rejected from housing for receiving rental assistance. 

Joy, who is using a pseudonym for privacy reasons, used her Housing Choice Voucher to find housing for herself and her mother, for whom she’s a caregiver. The two endured an “emotional” five-year journey to find a new place because of the discrimination they experienced for their housing voucher, she said.

After filing a complaint with IDHR, Joy said it seemed the investigator was trying to sway her into settling with the landlord, which made the negotiation process feel tense.

Although her experience with IDHR was challenging, she recommends that renters facing discrimination file with CCHR if possible, but she noted that it will be a lengthy process.

The discrimination, and the bureaucratic and time-consuming process associated with filing a complaint, takes a toll on renters.

“This is draining,” Joy said, explaining that she and her mother simply stayed in their previous housing for five years because they couldn’t successfully find a new place. “So imagine being discriminated against for five years, and now you find a place and it’s too small, and it’s not in the area that we wanted.”

The CCHR investigator who worked on Joy’s case encouraged her to go through with the process, letting her know that she was “doing the right thing,” she recalled. It is a lengthy, challenging, and often complicated process, and Joy urges other voucher holders to ask questions about anything they don’t understand. 

Given that the city of Chicago’s housing ordinances are complex, Shi said she can sympathize with some landlords who aren’t aware of the law. But the city also has a responsibility to notify new landlords of the laws, she noted. The consequence of landlords’ failure to learn the law—and of their discrimination against people using vouchers—falls on already vulnerable renters.  

“Me and my kids were almost homeless, dealing with landlords that say I’m not good enough to stay in a neighborhood,” Shi recalled telling a landlord during a negotiation session. “If I don’t prove to CHA why I couldn’t find an apartment in 90 days, guess who’s going to get kicked out the program [and] has to go stay in the shelter? Me.”

Housing Choice Voucher holders seek out housing for a variety of reasons, including environmental hazards in their home, feeling unsafe in their community, a desire to reduce their work commute, or because they want to find a better school district for their kids. Whatever the reasons, their choices are curtailed by discrimination, Levy said.

Drawing from her previous research on the subject, Alyse Oneto, senior research associate at the economic and social policy think tank Urban Institute, explained that one reason landlords are hesitant to accept tenants with Housing Choice Vouchers is the long wait times they can experience obtaining the necessary inspection approvals from the local housing authority. 

Before a Housing Choice Voucher holder can move in, the landlord must submit a Request for Tenancy Approval, and the local public housing agency must inspect the unit, said Diane Levy, principal research associate at the Urban Institute who has researched housing mobility programs. This can mean landlords may not have rental revenue for extended periods of time.

“Landlords considering renting to a voucher holder likely will weigh renting right away to someone without a voucher against going through the leasing and inspections process to rent to a person with a voucher,” Levy said. 

Beyond the administrative headaches, some landlords also have biases against renters with Housing Choice Vouchers if they had bad experiences in the past, Oneto added. 

Given that local housing authorities aren’t well-resourced, some landlords simply don’t know about the program and don’t understand its benefits, such as being guaranteed a portion of the rent, said Levy. 

“Yes, it might take longer with the regular program to get through the inspection process and lease up, but there’s some degree of security there. But I don’t think that is a broadly shared perspective,” Levy said. 

To shore up funds for underfunded enforcement agencies, Kelli Boyden, an attorney who has assisted renters in source-of-income complaints, suggests that housing authorities raise the fines against landlords who repeatedly break the law.

As it stands, fines of about $1,000 aren’t going to change how landlords behave, Chavarria said. Echoing Boyden, Chavarria said enforcement agencies at every level should charge fines that cover the costs of their typical expenses.

“When we go out and give trainings, the most effective thing we can tell housing providers about why they should comply with these laws is because of their financial liabilities,” Chavarria said. “That’s the first question every landlord has, ‘Well, what would it cost me if I got in trouble?’ And we need to be able to tell them, ‘Well, it would be $5,000, $10,000 just in the city fine. Plus, you have to make the victim whole.’ Then people will stop doing it.”

As renters, fair housing organizations, and state and government agencies push for better access to affordable housing, drastic changes to HUD under the Trump administration could further disenfranchise low-income renters. 

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump halted grants to organizations that investigate and litigate housing discrimination cases, alleging violations of the Fair Housing Act. Many fair housing organizations rely on these grants to help complainants at the local level, but it remains unclear whether these grants will be postponed or delayed indefinitely. 

“You can have state laws, you can have the Federal Fair Housing Act,” Levy said. “But if there aren’t the bodies there to take action on those complaints, those are the mechanisms for addressing housing discrimination.”

Editorial Team:
Tina Vasquez, Lead Editor
Carolyn Copeland, Top Editor
Stephanie Harris, Copy Editor