Major Landlord Accused Of Discriminating Against Section 8 Renters In Hawaiʻi

The caller asked the leasing agent at Kapolei Lofts if she could use her Section 8 housing voucher to rent a one bedroom unit at the apartment complex, which like a million rental properties around the world is owned by Greystar Worldwide.

Affordable units would qualify, the agent said, but there was a waiting list of more than a year for them.

Could she use her voucher to rent a market rate one bedroom, the caller asked during the recorded Feb. 4 conversation reviewed by Civil Beat.

She could try, the Greystar agent said, but “they’ve been denying those.”

The inquiry was a test — a test the agent had just failed. 

The caller was employed by the nonprofit Housing Rights Initiative to pose as someone eligible for Section 8 — federally funded vouchers that cover a portion of rent for low-income families, people with disabilities and veterans, among others. It is illegal in Hawaiʻi for private apartment complexes like Kapolei Lofts to limit tenants with housing vouchers to certain apartments.

A complaint against Greystar later filed with the Hawaiʻi Civil Rights Commission accused the company of breaking state laws that prohibit discrimination against people relying on housing assistance programs. Reviewed by Civil Beat, it accuses Greystar of five such violations at three of its six Hawaiʻi properties on Oʻahu and Maui, and 114 in total across six states and Washington, D.C.

“This is not some isolated incident involving a single applicant,” said Brian Corman, a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, the law firm representing Housing Rights Initiative. 

“Large housing providers have greater responsibilities,” Corman said. “When landlords operate at this scale, Greystar being the largest rental housing provider in the country, its policies affect thousands of people.”

Greystar did not respond this week to Civil Beat’s requests for comment. A Civil Beat reporter who visited the Kapolei Lofts leasing office seeking comment was told to go to the company’s website to find someone to speak on the company's behalf. An email sent to the office of the company’s CEO, Bob Faith, received a reply from the company saying that someone would look into the matter.

The New York Times reported that Greystar issued a statement saying that its employees are trained and expected to comply with all applicable laws and the company "remains committed to fair housing practices in everything we do.”

Testers Are A Common Approach

All states are covered by federal laws that prohibit housing discrimination based on factors including race, gender, religion and family size, but only some have their own laws barring discrimination based on source of income, which make people who receive housing vouchers a protected class.

Hawaiʻi is one of those states — which Corman said is why Housing Rights Initiative  focused its investigation on Greystar properties here, as well as in New Jersey, California, Maryland, Michigan and Virginia.

Under Act 310, a Hawaiʻi law that took effect in 2023, landlords cannot discriminate against renters who receive housing assistance. 

Among other things, that law prohibits landlords from refusing to rent to renters with vouchers, advertising that a a property does not accept vouchers or setting different terms and conditions for housing assistance program participants.

Since Act 310 passed, there has been some progress, but much has remained the same, said Alicia Pitts, a managing attorney at Legal Aid Society. Discrimination in advertising is less overt, Pitts said, but “it is still often very difficult for a voucher holder to find and secure housing” because landlords still find ways to not rent to people using vouchers.

Some of those ways include basing rejections on credit scores or requiring too much income in relation to rent, said Pitts, who directs the nonprofit’s Housing and Consumer Unit.

Besides Kapolei Lofts, which has 499 units, and where two alleged violations were recorded by Housing Rights Initiative testers, the Greystar violations are alleged to have taken place at an ʻEwa Beach complex called The Element and Kaulana Mahina in Wailuku. The Element has 318 units; Kaulana Mahina has 324.

The violations listed in the complaint filed included a tester being told that she could not count her voucher as income to meet income requirements, and another being told her voucher would have to cover her full rent and utilities. 

The use of trained testers to investigate compliance with fair housing laws is not uncommon. Beyond nonprofit advocates such as those with Housing Rights Initiative, a fair housing testing program has existed since 1992 inside the Department of Justice.

Corman said the Housing Rights Initiative in its complaint cited only instances where the unlawful denial of Section 8 was unambiguous.

“We're only providing the ones that are the very clear smoking gun instances,” he said, “where it really cannot be disputed that there was a violation based on what the representative said.”

For example, in a Jan. 23 call a Greystar leasing agent at The Element development told a Housing Rights Initiative tester that her voucher would need to cover the full rent plus utilities.

The tester double checked: “Would I be able to use my income and the voucher toward the requirement.”

“No, unfortunately not,” the agent said, “it has to be entirely covered through the voucher, you would not necessarily be allowed to cover the difference if the voucher did not meet rent and utilities.”

That is actually incorrect. Under Hawaiʻi law, vouchers count toward income. And voucher programs are designed as a subsidy under which the tenant pays a portion of their income, usually 30%, toward rent, while the voucher covers the rest.

High Stakes Timeline

The attorney for Housing Rights Initiative said discrimination against Section 8 renters  “undermines the investment” of federal funds intended to “help individuals and families thrive” and climb the economic ladder.

Housing vouchers “are one of the most effective tools that our country has for reducing poverty, improving housing stability, helping families avoid homelessness and combating segregation,” Corman said. “This case is about whether families who have done everything right to qualify for housing assistance can be given the same opportunity to rent as everyone else and the ability to move into areas of higher opportunity.”

During the investigation, which started last October, he said Housing Rights Initiative alerted Greystar that it was finding fair housing law violations taking place at the company’s properties. Yet even after that, Corman said they continued to regularly occur.

“Greystar could have done something to prevent it from continuing to happen,” he said. “That changed our perspective on whether or not Greystar really was active in ensuring it was in compliance with the law.”

Voucher holders typically only have 60 days after receiving their voucher to find and secure an apartment, which Pitts said makes the housing search a particularly high stakes process.

“These tight search deadlines create chronic stress,” she said. “Failing to secure a lease and pass required inspections before the voucher expires can mean losing stable housing entirely and facing houselessness.”

Penalties Up To $2,500

The Hawaiʻi Civil Rights Commission investigated 50 housing discrimination cases in fiscal year 2025, Executive Director Marcus Kawatachi said.

Commission rules prevent him from commenting on the Greystar case, he said, or even confirming that one has been filed. 

In general, Kawatachi said, once a complaint is received and the target has had a chance to respond, a commission investigator would conduct interviews, review records and perhaps perform inspections, before deciding whether enforcement would be called for.

Cases can be resolved in any number of ways, he said, including through the assessment of penalties or by settlement.

First time offenses can warrant a $2,000 penalty; subsequent violations can earn $2,500 fines.

Information about the outcomes of the cases filed in 2025 was not immediately available, Kawatachi said. But during that year, he said the commission found that in three cases filed previously, there was reasonable cause to believe that housing discrimination had occurred.

That same year, 40 previously filed housing discrimination cases were dismissed. The reasons for that varied, Kawatachi said: voluntary settlements were reached, there were findings of insufficient evidence to investigate; or cases were withdrawn to instead be filed in court.