For decades federal housing vouchers, known in shorthand as Section 8, have helped immigrant households and other low-income renters in San Francisco keep a roof over their heads.
Now, a federal proposal years in the making could force immigrant families to break up or face eviction from their subsidized homes. The new rule, which has not yet taken effect, has also put housing providers and City Hall in a potential legal limbo.
In February, the Department of Housing and Urban Development said it would outlaw rent subsidies for “mixed-status” immigrant households, in which some members have legal U.S. residency and others might not.
At last count, more than 15,000 San Francisco households use HUD vouchers. It’s not clear how many of them might fall afoul of the new policy. But there are some clues from 2019, when the first Trump administration signaled that it was preparing a similar crackdown. At the time, the city attorney estimated that it could affect hundreds of SF renters, many of them children.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 presidential election sidelined HUD’s push then. But as the 2024 election approached, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 manifesto, considered a blueprint for a second Trump term, declared “local welfare organizations, not the federal government, should step up to provide welfare for the housing of noncitizens.”
With Trump’s victory in Nov. 2024, immigration advocates warned of a potential do-over.
“Mixed-status families… would have to make that hard choice of separating as a family, or leaving their housing and quite possibly not being able to find an alternative,” Housing California executive director Chione Flegal told CalMatters after Trump’s reelection. Asked for comment this month about the rule’s revival, the Sacramento-based nonprofit referred The Frisc to Flegal’s 2024 comments.
Before ending mixed-status eligibility, HUD must go through a public comment period. Lawsuits are likely if and when the agency puts the rule in effect.
However, HUD is already adding pressure to the situation. It has demanded that local authorities, including San Francisco’s, provide records of the legal immigration status of certain residents in households where anyone receives Section 8 vouchers.
Cities like SF are supposed to check the status of renters whom HUD has flagged using Department of Homeland Security data, according to a HUD release entitled “Cleaning House.”
Deborah Thrope, deputy director of the nonprofit advocacy National Housing Law Project, says every local housing authority in the country received similar demands. “This has major implications for all families, because anyone could show up on this list,” says Thrope, alleging that sloppiness at DHS and HUD could implicate the wrong households.
HUD did not respond to requests for comment.
The 411 on Section 8
To qualify for Section 8 subsidies in San Francisco, a household — whether one person or many — cannot make more than 50 percent of the area median income. For a single person in 2025, that’s $54,550. For a family of four, it’s $77,950. (Figures for 2026 are not available yet.)
With a voucher, most households pay no more than 30 percent of their income out of pocket for housing and utilities.
For the most part, renters use Section 8 vouchers to pay private landlords. It’s the job of the SF Housing Authority (SFHA), which oversees the voucher program in the city, to verify every applicant’s immigration status, according to SFHA.
Legal immigrants at various levels, including green card holders, asylum seekers, and visa holders, may apply for vouchers just like any other San Francisco renter.
Under current rules that took effect in 1980, if at least one person per household is in the country legally, family members who have chosen not to provide their immigration status — “declined to contend” is the legal jargon — may live in the apartment as well, but they cannot receive a voucher.
Now HUD wants all residents in such households to confirm legal status in order for anyone there to receive voucher aid. Housing providers and advocates worry the demand will force landlords to become de facto enforcers, either reporting their tenants’ status or preemptively telling them to leave to avoid a family breakup or deportation.
In early March, HUD Sec. Scott Turner called current mixed-status rules a “loophole” that lets “illegal aliens simply declare citizenship for HUD housing, with no proof.”
Turner’s claim is incorrect. Only legal immigrants can receive a Section 8 voucher. Someone under the same roof who “declines to contend” their legal status is expected to pay their own full share of the rent.
Even by issuing this notice there’s a chilling effect.
Deborah Thrope, the National Housing Law Project
But someone without documentation can indirectly benefit from the mixed-status system. If someone in the household is getting a Section 8 subsidy, that could reduce the overall budget, even if one or more members are paying full price for their share of the rent.
UC Berkeley’s Terner Center For Housing Innovation last month cited 2017 HUD data that there were 7,200 mixed-status households in California, and about half of them received a Section 8 voucher. Nationwide, a large majority of these mixed-status households are Latino, which is also likely for San Francisco, although there are no data immediately available.
It’s also not clear how many mixed-status homes or residents are in the city. SFHA declined to make the numbers public. But when the Trump White House raised the idea in 2019, then-Mayor London Breed and then-City Attorney Dennis Herrera estimated that “more than 100 families in San Francisco, all with children” would become homeless, while “another 60” would have to either give up their housing benefits or split up their household.
Breed and Herrera called the proposal “illegal, inhumane, and shortsighted.” Their current counterparts, Daniel Lurie and David Chiu, have not made a statement about the policy’s revival.
As a point of reference, Santa Barbara County, with roughly half the population of San Francisco, has more than 300 mixed-status households, according to its housing officials.
90 percent clear
When HUD announced the new policy in February, it gave SF and other cities 30 days to comply. It’s not clear when the clock actually started, but if the date has passed, there’s been no public acknowledgment from HUD, San Francisco, or any other locality. HUD did not respond to requests for comment.
On background, SF City Hall sources say that the Mayor’s Office, Housing Authority, City Attorney, and Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs have been meeting privately to discuss how to respond, and the city is preparing a public statement that might not come for a few weeks yet.
Also on background, sources say that SFHA has confirmed the legal status of 90 percent of Section 8 households flagged by HUD through existing documentation. When door-to-door outreach is necessary, the city is using intermediaries such as community organizers.
The HUD directive puts SF in a predicament. Its sanctuary city policy means SF does not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, except when required by law. So what does the law say about this situation? The city attorney declined to comment, citing attorney-client privilege. Former City Attorney Herrera declared the move illegal in 2019 but did not return requests for comment about the current situation.
The National Housing Law Project argues that HUD will violate the law if it outlaws mixed-status households. “We think that [the 1980 law] does not authorize HUD to evict mixed-status families, we think Congress’s intent is very clear,” says Thrope, adding that “even by issuing this notice there’s a chilling effect” and a risk that some renters might self-evict.
SF housing providers largely declined to provide comment, some citing fear of reprisal from immigration officials if they speak critically.
San Francisco Housing Rights Committee spokesperson Lizzy Kramer fears “horrible outcomes for tenants,” including mass eviction or family separation, if the city cooperates with immigration authorities. She notes that “many cities across the country are refusing to comply” or acting to delay the rule.
For example, Santa Barbara is encouraging residents to submit as many public comments as possible on the rule change, noting that HUD must read all of them before executing its plan. The deadline to submit public comment is April 21.