The city of Lexington could become one of more than 100 cities, including Louisville, to end what is known as source of income discrimination.

Now, that's when landlords will not rent to someone using other sources of income, including federal housing vouchers, to pay rent.

We spoke to some housing advocates as the Lexington City Council gets set to consider a ban on the practice.

There's some people on the street who are unhoused, who have vouchers, but no one will rent to them.

No one will accept their voucher.

We've had people on the street for as long as 130 days with a voucher and then no one will rent to them.

We've had homeless programs returned, funds that they were using for rental assistance because they couldn't find anybody to rent to their clients.

We are discriminate against people as long as we have a source of income discrimination.

These are people who have the means to pay for a unit and are not being allowed to.

And this is direct discrimination against, in many cases, our unhoused population.

I'm disabled.

I have had a voucher before.

I am now on disability, but I do work some.

So at many points in my life my income hasn't looked perfect or super desirable to all landlords and that has really limited my housing choices.

It has put me in harm's way before I can get put a lot of people in harm's way if they don't have the ability to access the same housing options with everyone else does.

It's people with disabilities.

It's single parents.

It's people who have a lot of vulnerabilities in terms of finding a unit to rent, regardless of whether they're using assistance.

And it only compounds the situation when they're trying to use a voucher.

And, you know, we looked one day just to sample the data and there were, you know, only 4% of listings that did not list what take section eight.

And so you're talking about out of 500 plus listings, maybe a handful who would even talk to you.

Let's listen to you.

About 80% of Lexington's Housing Choice Section eight voucher holders are nonwhite, 76% black.

That doesn't mean landlords are intentionally saying I won't rent based on race, but it means that their decision not to take vouchers has an impact on race.

It's a has a disparate impact on on black and black communities and other communities of color.

You know, and that's not lost on folks, you know, in a community like so many others that has a history of redlining and limiting where those folks can can live.

There's still any number of barriers that will be out there for some of these individuals, including credit history or eviction history or, you know, other things that may limit their options.

But what we're saying is let's not limit it just based on a form of payment.

But, you know, if a landlord still wants to screen folks based on their credit history or based on their criminal history, that's still allowed that no one will stop them from that.

In fact, I would encourage the landlord to make those checks.

All we're saying is, does it matter if the check comes from the tenant or from the housing authority?

Housing saves people's lives.

And if we can get folks who are already qualified for the program, who already have their vouchers, if we can get their applications seen by landlords and acknowledged the same as every other application, they'll see that that some of those tenants are people they're going to want in their properties.

And that will change so many things that will allow people to, if they do the vote this before the end of the year and it passes.

That would mean that people will get to survive the holidays.

People die during winter on the street and we have the ability to stop that.

I've been homeless before.

I am also a really good tenant and a nice person.

And I think the misinformation that has been going around in the landlord community that that Section eight tenants are just like bad people or are out to cause damage is something we really need to really need to fight because good people deserve to have to have a home and to raise their families in that home.

The tenants obviously are very, very strongly in favor of this.

And then landlords, there's some landlords that are just adamantly opposed to it and aren't willing to consider.

There's landlords who take Section eight vouchers and shrug their shoulders and say, I don't have a problem with it.

And then there's some in the middle that just want to know more.

We want to try and find a way that makes everyone happy, but that's not always possible.

We just need to make sure everyone feels heard and everyone gets a chance to to weigh in.

The council will hear public testimony on the issue tomorrow night.

Council members could vote on a ban by the end of the year.