Housing advocates in Delaware are celebrating many successes from the recent state legislative session, including the enactment of SB 293, which will expand the state’s Fair Housing Act to prohibit discrimination against tenants who use housing vouchers to pay their rent, and HB 442, which will create a taskforce focused on affordable housing production to provide clear and actionable recommendations to the state’s next governor. Advocates also achieved success in protecting the rights of people experiencing homelessness and reducing barriers and costs associated with preserving and developing affordable homes. The Housing Alliance Delaware (HAD), an NLIHC state partner, led many advocacy activities that contributed to these policy wins while also advancing other bills it hopes will be passed next year.
With the passage of SB 293, which was signed into law by Governor John Carney on August 9, Delaware became the 23rd state to secure source-of-income (SOI) protections for tenants. First introduced by Senator Elizabeth Lockman, SB 293 strengthens already existing source-of-income protections passed in the state in 2016 that had limited protections for housing vouchers. However, Delaware’s new law, which goes into effect for renters on January 1, 2026, prohibits landlords from discriminating against voucher holders or recipients of government-sponsored rental assistance programs – a common form of housing discrimination impacting the lowest-income and most marginalized renters.
According to HAD, people who receive housing assistance are often the state’s most vulnerable population. Eighty-five percent of housing voucher holders are female-headed households, and 65% are households headed by a person with a disability or with a spouse aged 62 years or older. Though most housing voucher recipients in Delaware are employed, many do not earn enough to afford their homes, as evidenced by the two-bedroom Housing Wage for the state, calculated by NLIHC to be $30.65 – more than double the state’s minimum wage. With more than 87% of housing voucher recipient households headed by a racial minority, the new source-of-income protections could help remedy longstanding racial discrimination in Delaware’s rental market.
Indeed, source-of-income protections are a critical protection for tenants. As rents remain higher than they were in previous years, and tenants continue to contend with a shortage of more affordable and available rental units for the lowest-income renters across the country, the enactment of such protections safeguard tenants by ensuring that the lowest-income and most marginalized renters do not face the burden of being denied housing simply for their status as a participant in a government-supported rental assistance program, such as the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program. Due to social bias, a landlord or property owner may refuse to rent a property to a public assistance recipient, constraining a prospective tenant’s housing choice options in a market where housing is already out of reach for millions of renters. By prohibiting discrimination against those who participate in a public assistance program, the law puts renters in a better position to seek out affordable and available housing options of their choosing. Even so, the new source-of-income law is set to sunset in 2028.
HAD also worked with other advocates and coalition partners to introduce a Homeless Bill of Rights to protect the growing numbers of people experiencing homelessness across the state. When it became clear that there was not enough support for the entire bill, it was divided into three smaller bills focusing on preventing discrimination against people experiencing homelessness when seeking housing (HB 439) and employment (HB 440) and ensuring civil protections and equal treatment in the use of public spaces (HB 55). HB 439 and HB 440 both passed the legislature and await the Governor’s signature. Advocates will continue working with legislators next session and hope to make more progress on HB 55.
Additional affordable housing bills passed in the session will make it easier to develop and preserve affordable housing. For instance, SB 25 exempts construction of affordable housing units from the state’s 2% improvement tax. Meanwhile, SB 244 allows a county that collects lodging tax to allocate some or all of the proceeds for workforce and affordable housing programs, and SB 246 creates a revolving loan fund to support home repair programs operated by the Delaware State Housing Authority. A proposal to develop a designated line item of 1% of the state’s budget to the creation of affordable homes was ultimately not successful. However, advocates had many productive discussions with legislators and hope that this ongoing education, along with the forthcoming recommendations from the new taskforce, will result in more sustainable and consistent funding sources in the future.
Advocates credit these policy wins to increased participation in advocacy activities throughout the year and strengthened relationships with legislators. HAD expanded its engagement with faith communities through its annual Faith & Housing Justice events in the fall and sustained this engagement throughout the legislative session. Faith organizations sponsored free transportation for low-income residents and people with lived experience of homelessness and housing insecurity to attend the annual Day for Housing advocacy event at the Delaware statehouse in May. With this added support, Day for Housing brought out more than 100 advocates – a 34% increase over the previous year – who visited 80% of state Senate offices and 54% of General Assembly offices. Members of Delaware’s Continuum of Care also came out strong to support some of the priority housing bills. HAD also worked with various coalitions throughout the session, most notably the Delaware Affordable Housing Coalition, Sussex Housing Group, and the H.O.M.E.S. Campaign.
“We are excited about all the legislative successes this year to advance housing justice in Delaware,” said Rachel Stucker, director of Housing Alliance Delaware. “Many of these bills were not easy to get through. We are thankful for our legislative leaders on housing issues and the housing advocates for all of their hard work. We are looking forward to getting even more done this coming year.”
For more information about Housing Alliance Delware, please visit https://www.housingalliancede.org/ or contact Sonya Starr, policy director, at [email protected].