Several cities, including in Texas, passed ordinances that said you can’t engage in income discrimination - so when you ask for proof of income to pay the rent, you can’t refuse to count SSDI, welfare, Section 8 housing.
The only stumbling blocks are:
* they can’t MAKE property 8 owners sign up for a program, just as they can’t make you sign up for childcare voucher acceptance, so the ordinance only counts if you join their program
* credit scores can still be used as a screening standard if applied across the board, and that’s still a factor
* saying you can’t filter out people based on criminal records WILL lead to lawsuits because it is necessary for the safety of the other tenants
They have done stings in Seattle, where they call and ask landlords questions- do you accept Section 8? The landlord says no, and now the landlord faces a fine. What a smart landlord should do is make a website for their rental with pictures, etc. The person interested in the rental fills out the application, and mails it to the landlord. You can tell if the person is illiterate by a hand filled out application rather than a computer application with spell check. At that point, no discussion has been made. Everything is via the mail or computer. The landlord is then free to background check a person, determine their credit rating a job history. You can probably weed out the section 8 types, because they are either not working or have a low wage job. After that, then set up a face to face interview.
It would be very difficult to prove discrimination when the landlord does not make incriminating statements, and you cannot find out who applied for the rental.
My former boss (he passed away) owned rental properties. He always had me check CCAP (Wisconsin circuit court access). One time, the people gave one name but, thank God for Caller ID, their call came from another name. The guy was a convicted sex offender! We had to say we declined for a different reason but did not let that guy move in. Landlords will come up with ways, if they want to, to get the info on potential renters.