Open Communities and Metropolitan Tenants Organization (MTO), both NLIHC members, have joined Chicago area advocates in celebrating the Cook County Board of Commissioners’ decision to include Housing Choice Voucher holders as a protected class under the county’s human rights ordinance. Following two unsuccessful attempts to pass similar measures, advocates involved in the ten-year campaign are excited that housing providers no longer can deny qualified Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher holders solely because they use vouchers to pay their rent. Prior to the commission’s May 8 vote, the ordinance protected individuals from discrimination on the basis of their source of income (SOI)—child support and social security income, for example—but it specifically excluded voucher holders. Advocates assert that housing providers have refused to rent to voucher holders as a legal way to discriminate and exclude people from housing based on race, national origin, familial status and disability. This impediment has kept racial minorities, particularly African Americans and Latinos, and people with disabilities, segregated from Cook County’s high opportunity areas.Open Communities joined MTO and others in an effort to reorganize the SOI campaign in 2011. Campaign leaders secured County Commissioner Jesus Garcia to sponsor the SOI amendment and worked to broaden the base of campaign supporters beyond affordable housing advocacy partnerships. More than 60 organizations—including labor unions, clergy members, women’s advocacy groups and disability organizations—endorsed the campaign. In addition, U.S. Representatives Danny Davis (D), Robyn Kelly (D), and Jan Schakowsky (D) joined in supporting the measure, as did State Senators Daniel Biss and Patricia Watkins, and State Representatives Robyn Gabel and Elaine Nekritz. The campaign revised fact sheets and other materials to provide clear and concise messages to combat opponents’ mischaracterizations of what the amendment would require. MTO took the lead on larger organizing efforts, including letter writing campaigns and town hall meetings. Open Communities produced action alerts, provided support to campaign endorsers, and organized meetings with county commissioners. Advocates began to see significant progress in July 2012 when the board’s Committee on Human Relations passed an amendment to remove the ordinance provision. As the amendment passed only by two votes, campaign members redoubled their education and advocacy efforts to urge the full board to accept the amendment. Advocates partnered with voucher holders, whose personal stories about discriminatory practices provided a face to the campaign. Supporters also presented data on the distribution of housing vouchers in the region. Campaign members highlighted the 2012 Cook County Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice, which cites the county’s exclusion of the voucher protection as an impediment to fair housing. The analysis recommended that the county board amend the ordinance to include it. All HUD-funded jurisdictions are required to affirmatively further fair housing in order to continue to receive funds. In 2012, the county received $8.7 million in Community Development Block Grant funding, in addition to other federal grants. Advocates urged the county to address its segregation issues directly and act deliberately to promote integration or face HUD penalties.The amendment requires that all tenants have the opportunity to be screened for a prospective unit equally, but it does not force landlords to accept all housing vouchers. It also outlaws charging larger security deposits solely because the tenant has a voucher. Cook County joins the City of Chicago and five other Illinois municipalities, ten states, the District of Columbia and eight counties across the nation that have laws protecting individuals from discrimination based on the use of a voucher. “We have put the choice back in Housing Choice Vouchers,” said Brendan Saunders of Open Communities. “We hope that tenants with Housing Choice Vouchers will be able to have greater control over where they choose to live.” For more information, contact: Brendan Saunders, Open Communities, [email protected]; or John Bartlett, Metropolitan Tenants Organization, [email protected].