In an effort to curb discrimination against users of affordable-housing vouchers, the Marin County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously last week to adopt a new fair housing ordinance. The proposed ordinance, which requires a second and final vote scheduled for next Tuesday, would prohibit landlords renting property in unincorporated Marin from discriminating against users of third-party subsidies. Section 8 housing vouchers are the most prevalent of those subsidies, which also include programs for veterans and people with AIDS. Section 8 tenants, who must earn no more than half of the median income in a specific area, pay about 30 percent of their income for rent. (In the most recent census, Marin’s median household income was $91,529.) The landlord is directly paid the remaining rent by the local housing agency, in this case the Marin Housing Authority, which receives funding from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. The ordinance seeks to clarify ambiguity in a state law that prohibits housing discrimination based on a person’s source of income, which the law defines as “income paid directly to a tenant or paid to a representative of a tenant.” Supervisor Judy Arnold emphasized that the ordinance does not demand that landlords rent to voucher holders. “It requires landlords to consider their applications. Landlords can still screen their applicants as they would any other applicant and if appropriate, deny them accordingly,” she said. In West Marin, there are 36 Section 8 voucher holders—20 in Point Reyes, 11 in Bolinas, four in Stinson Beach and one in Inverness. No West Marin residents spoke during last week’s meeting, but Wendy Botwin, of Fairfax, addressed the importance of the ordinance. “To finally get a voucher and then go look for places to live, which as we all know is quite impossible these days, and to be turned away… just ends up creating a homelessness problem that’s even bigger than we already have now,” she said. D’Jon Scott-Miller, assistant program manager for the Marin Housing Authority, said that there are currently 215 homeless people on the waitlist for Section 8. A landlord from Fairfax, Roland Lee, opposed it. “We have a dilemma. We have x amount of people wanting to live here who want affordable housing, and there’s no such thing as affordable housing in the Bay Area because it’s the most expensive place in the United States,” he said. “I’ve had Section 8 [voucher holders] and… I would not take them again because, from my personal experience, they did not take good care of the property. They tear it up.” The ordinance, modeled after a similar one in East Palo Alto, arose from a series of county workshops on affordable housing held last fall and this spring. “It’s something that we’ve been talking about at some length as we’ve worked through our housing challenges just this year as a board,” Supervisor Steve Kinsey said.