By Robin Urevich
Contributing Writer
LOS ANGELES — One of the biggest landlords in the region has been turning away people seeking apartments under the Section 8 housing assistance program in many of its buildings, in apparent violation of state law, a Capital & Main investigation found.
Jamison, a group of family-run real estate companies, has been lauded for its civically active executive and its efforts to turn underused office space into housing. But Jamison stands out among other large L.A.-area landlords for its near non-participation in the Section 8 program, the largest housing assistance program in the country, the investigation found.
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In a statement, a Jamison company spokesperson said “the management companies overseeing Jamison’s portfolio accept and welcome tenants utilizing Section 8 vouchers.”
Section 8 is a powerful tool for fighting homelessness and the housing crisis across the nation. But it is especially needed in L.A. County, where wages haven’t kept pace with rising rents. Housing Choice Vouchers, as they’re officially known, subsidize rent for about 85,000 households in L.A. County that don’t earn enough to afford a market-rate rental.
At its best, Section 8 and its federally funded assistance vouchers offer a way out of poverty for low-income residents — affordable rent in a community of their choice.
But too often the program fails to deliver on its promises. Four in 10 voucher holders in the U.S. never find housing at all, even after years on Section 8 waiting lists, according to a 2021 study by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Terri Reynolds, who oversees programs at the nonprofit Asian American Drug Abuse Program to help clients in the L.A. area find housing, said they’re “so happy” to obtain rental assistance. But they are often disappointed, she said, “because landlords don’t want to mess with Section 8.”
The reluctance of landlords to participate is one of the Section 8 program’s biggest problems, even though a state law bars them from rejecting tenants because they use vouchers.
Dan Yukelson, executive director of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, said red tape and hard-to-understand rules make Section 8 “an administrative nightmare” for some of his members, who are mostly mom-and-pop landlords.
Capital & Main investigated seven of L.A. County’s largest landlords to determine whether they open their doors to Section 8 tenants. Unlike smaller landlords who might be unfamiliar with the rules, these multifamily real estate giants have abundant administrative resources to interpret and comply with state law.
Capital & Main’s findings are based on data collected by testers hired by the news organization to pose as Section 8 voucher holders. From late 2024 to early 2025 the testers contacted leasing agents to ask about available apartments in 65 buildings owned or operated by Jamison, Equity Residential, Essex Property Trust, AvalonBay Communities, G.H. Palmer Associates, Prime Residential and Greystar.
The tests were limited to buildings where advertised rents were low enough for Section 8 recipients to be able to move in. Testers asked leasing staff at each building if they accepted Section 8 vouchers, and if so, what income and creditworthiness criteria each used to qualify applicants.
Jamison buildings were the only ones where leasing agents said they could not rent to Section 8 tenants. Of 21 properties that testers contacted, agents at 15 said they could not accept vouchers. At one property, an agent described income requirements that would automatically exclude voucher holders. Agents initially said they would accept Section 8 at five of the properties, but either described minimum credit scores that would exclude many voucher holders, or did not respond to follow-up inquiries.
Capital & Main contacted Jamison with its key findings and a list of questions. In its statement earlier this month, the company spokesperson said many of the issues raised were “completely wrong and/or misleading” but did not comment on many of the specific problems the reporting found.
Last fall, a tester called to inquire about an apartment at Jamison’s Atlas House in L.A.’s Koreatown with some attractive amenities, including state-of-the-art appliances, a swimming pool and hot tub. But they were told the building was not accepting Section 8 vouchers.
“We are actively seeking approval to begin accepting Section 8 vouchers, and when that approval goes through, we will publicly make an announcement,” the representative said.
But the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles has no such approval or inspection process, said its Section 8 director, Carlos Van Natter.
“We would not inspect the whole building,” Van Natter said, adding that the agency only inspects individual apartments to ensure habitability after a landlord has accepted a tenant’s rental application.
At the Sienna on Serrano and the Roya, both relatively new Koreatown buildings that offer features like modern kitchens, gyms, pool decks and even a karaoke room, leasing agents also said they were awaiting city approvals for their Section 8 participation, which they said they expected within a few months.
Between 2021 and 2024, only one Section 8 tenant moved into a Jamison property, according to records Capital & Main obtained from the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles under the California Public Records Act.
The Jamison spokesperson’s statement did not address the lack of Section 8 tenants in its properties, but said that the management companies overseeing its portfolio “take proactive steps, including engaging a broker and nonprofits, to help identify individuals and families who hold vouchers or qualify for income-restricted Affordable Housing units.”.
But the findings raised concerns for L.A. County Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who, as a state senator, authored the 2020 state law that makes it illegal to reject tenants because they pay rent with government assistance.
“It’s disappointing because the law is the law,” Mitchell said.
Jamison’s three dozen or so residential buildings in the L.A. area were built since 2013, and thus too new to be covered by local rent control laws or the state’s maximum 10% per year limit on rent increases. Under the Section 8 program, however, the company would be required to get housing authority approval for annual rent hikes.
Jay Lybik, a real estate expert who until recently was the CoStar Group’s national director of multifamily analytics, said that given state and local rent caps, Jamison may exclude voucher holders so that it can freely raise rents on its units.
Lybik, who now directs market research for Continental Properties, said Jamison “most likely needs to hit certain return hurdles for their investors and will need to be squeezing every percentage of rent growth. Thus, they don’t want to be hampered by the lower yearly increases allowed.”
Robin Urevich is a reporter for Capital & Main, a nonprofit publication focused on inequality. It is republished here with permission. Reporting for this series was supported by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
