{"id":976097,"date":"2026-08-02T17:22:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T17:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/976097\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T17:22:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T17:22:15","slug":"veterans-voucher-ordinance-to-be-revisited-in-november","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/976097\/","title":{"rendered":"Veterans voucher ordinance to be revisited in November"},"content":{"rendered":"

In May the San Antonio City Council passed an ordinance <\/a>that banned landlords with five or more properties from turning away veterans who were paying rent with a federal housing voucher.<\/p>\n

Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones and veteran advocates argue the ordinance does not do enough to help expand access to housing for veterans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are more restrictions to a dog being off the leash than there are to discriminating against a veteran using a voucher,\u201d Jones said. \u201cThat\u2019s ludicrous and unacceptable in Military City USA.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to a City Council ordinance<\/a>, a dog owner found to not be in compliance with the city\u2019s leash policy will be fined $100 for the first violation, $500 for the second and $750 for the third.<\/p>\n

A landlord found to not be in compliance with the city\u2019s voucher acceptance policy<\/a> will be given a written warning on the first offense, a mandatory training on the second offense and a $500 fine on the third offense. <\/p>\n

When the ordinance hits its six-month mark in November, Jones said <\/strong>she will revisit it, aiming to remove all exemptions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A veteran of the Air Force herself and a former Pentagon official, Jones chided her fellow council members for passing the ordinance without closing the loopholes on exemptions.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Bexar County Ballot, our weekly politics and election newsletter. <\/p>\n

\u201cSome of my colleagues were OK with a little bit of discrimination\u2026 I, of course, advocate for no discrimination,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

HUD-VASH and Section 8 vouchers<\/p>\n

The My City is My Home<\/a> chapter of the American GI Forum worked with students at UTSA\u2019s Rowdy Corps Community Scholars program to create a report analyzing housing options<\/a> across the city, and build two online tools to help renters see where vouchers are accepted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe central idea of this report is simple: an advertised unit is not necessarily an accessible unit,\u201d said Wael Albakri, a masters student working on the project.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s research looked at what properties in San Antonio are accepting the Section 8 housing voucher, a government program aimed at helping low-income families, veterans, seniors and people with disabilities afford rent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The HUD-VASH voucher is a specialized type of the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program, specifically focused on veterans; a property\u2019s response to accepting Section 8 does not necessarily establish its HUD-VASH policy, but it is often an indicator.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nearly 70% of in-city apartments clearly indicated their response to accepting Section 8 vouchers was \u201cno\u201d <\/strong>and 92% of the MLS single-family and duplexes in the city were also marked as Section 8 \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look at where the places that take the HUD or even any of the federal vouchers are, they\u2019re very far from the veteran facilities,\u201d Jones said. \u201cThat\u2019s exactly why the VASH vouchers exist because the VA recognizes that for our most vulnerable veterans, it\u2019s not just an issue of housing; it\u2019s also an issue of access to healthcare.\u201d<\/p>\n

The breakdown of MLS single-family and duplex acceptance of Section 8 housing vouchers by City Council district showed that areas with critical veteran resources often had the least options for housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

District 8, home to the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans\u2019 Hospital, <\/strong>had the second-lowest acceptance rate, with five rentals marked <\/strong>\u201cyes\u201d for accepting Section 8 housing vouchers, and 99 marked \u201cno.\u201d <\/strong>According to the report, the only district with fewer options was District 9, which had zero out of 104 properties marked <\/strong>\u201cyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans\u2019 Hospital in San Antonio opened in 1973. Credit: Scott Ball \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n

When looking at current listings with three or more bedrooms, only 6.7% of available listings reported accepting Section 8.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat matters to veterans with children, large families, multi-generational households, people with living caregivers and households that need additional accessible space,\u201d Albakri said.<\/p>\n

The importance of housing<\/p>\n

Jones said the policy as it stands hurts already vulnerable groups of veterans. <\/p>\n

The exemption process is reliant on understanding how many units a landlord owns, which is information that is not readily available, making the enforcement of the exemption difficult. The city housing team must look into each individual landlord when a violation is reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a process that is very difficult to navigate. Period,\u201d Jones said. \u201cBut certainly difficult for somebody that has PTSD.\u201d<\/p>\n

American GI Forum Bexar County chapter commander Pete Bernal agrees, and he says housing is one of the things that determines if a veteran survives the \u201cDeadly Gap<\/a>,\u201d the first 12 months post-active duty when a veteran is most at risk of committing suicide.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo put a barrier in front of people can [make] a person to go to suicide, <\/strong>because the first thing they say is, \u2018I don\u2019t have a place to live, so why do I want to live?\u2019\u201d Bernal said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A VA study from 2025<\/a> found that veterans experiencing housing instability were three times as likely to have suicidal thoughts and twice as likely to attempt suicide compared to stably housed veterans.<\/p>\n

Bernal, veteran who served 15 years in the U.S. Army, says advocating for housing access for veterans in need is personal to him because he could have easily been in their place.<\/p>\n

\u201cI put a lot of time into this. I\u2019m achy. I\u2019m always hurting, I feel down. I have pains and stuff. But this motivates me just to get up in the morning, just so I can make sure someone has a bed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The group also found that for hundreds of homes, advertised rent was not the first barrier, voucher acceptance was. <\/p>\n

Of the 1,506 single-family or duplex rentals in the city marked \u201cno\u201d for accepting Section 8, 924 have an advertised rent that was financially possible for people paying with a voucher.<\/p>\n

Researchers called 105 properties of those 924 to get a sample on how many were specifically accepting the HUD-VASH voucher.<\/p>\n

Twelve said they would accept HUD-VASH. But 93 said they would not.<\/p>\n

Revisiting exemptions<\/p>\n

Jones said this isn\u2019t good enough, especially when the city of Fort Worth passed a measure without exemptions. <\/p>\n

\u201cFort Worth passed this two years ago,\u201d Jones said. \u201cAnd you know what? Fort Worth is still standing.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also said she spoke with VA Secretary Doug Collins about the possibility of adding transitional housing options on VA properties in San Antonio so that veterans can live in close proximity to the care they need. <\/p>\n

\"\"U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins visited the South Texas Veterans Health Care System on June 17, 2026. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n

She said it will take an \u201call-of-the-above <\/strong>approach\u201d to meet the housing needs of veterans in the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur job as leaders is to make sure that we are helping the most vulnerable,\u201d Jones said. \u201cOur veterans who need housing who are utilizing vouchers are, in fact, that group.\u201d<\/p>\n

The San Antonio Report\u2019s military and veterans coverage is supported by Report for America.<\/p>\n

Are you doing your part?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019re committed to providing free, fair journalism for all<\/strong>. But without reader support, our nonprofit newsroom can\u2019t do its job to keep our San Antonio community informed and empowered.<\/p>\n

This work is\u00a0critical \u2014 will you help us sustain it?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In May the San Antonio City Council passed an ordinance that banned landlords with five or more properties…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":976098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5133],"tags":[14183,5229,172079,20179,198748,5310,7371,9619,69424,21469,1802,3811,391828,7202,7203,71478,358,7453,3187,7815,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,7817,41695,2512,102547,20705],"class_list":["post-976097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-air-force","tag-america","tag-american-gi-forum","tag-army","tag-audie-l-murphy-memorial-veterans-hospital","tag-city-council","tag-fort-worth","tag-homeless","tag-hud","tag-mayor-gina-ortiz-jones","tag-military","tag-ptsd","tag-rowdy-corps-community-scholars","tag-san-antonio","tag-sanantonio","tag-section-8","tag-texas","tag-top-story","tag-tx","tag-typedaily","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-utsa","tag-va","tag-veterans","tag-vouchers","tag-wc-750-1000"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117027076318936130","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/976097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=976097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/976097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/976098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=976097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=976097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=976097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}