State law to void Lawrence housing discrimination ordinance July 1

Lawrence renters who rely on housing vouchers are about to lose a local protection that helped many of them keep those vouchers in use and find landlords willing to rent to them. When Senate Bill 391 takes effect on July 1, the city’s source-of-income discrimination ordinance will become null and void, stripping away a rule that had become central to housing stability in Lawrence.

The Lawrence City Commission adopted Ordinance No. 9960 on February 14, 2023, and the city says it took effect June 1, 2023. It expanded housing protections to cover source of income and immigration status, and added protections for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking and stalking. In practical terms, landlords could not turn away applicants simply because they planned to pay with a voucher, settlement money, benefits, subsidies or a Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing voucher.

That change mattered in a community where voucher holders had long struggled to find willing landlords. Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority CEO Shannon Oury said voucher utilization was 94% when the ordinance was adopted and climbed to 99% within eight months. A later report put utilization at 99.9% by April 2024. Oury also said new low-income tax credit developments likely helped, but the ordinance clearly widened access for renters who had been stuck searching for housing with their assistance in hand.

The city’s rule survived a district court challenge before Douglas County Judge Mark Simpson, then an appeal that the Kansas Court of Appeals upheld on May 16, 2025. The Kansas Supreme Court declined to review the case in September 2025. Tower Properties Company then filed a federal lawsuit in January 2026 and pressed the issue in the Kansas Legislature, where the company’s leadership said it did not want to be forced into the voucher system.

Tower Properties owns more than 540 local units across Harper Square Apartments, Hutton Farms, Tuckaway and Briarwood of Lawrence, according to state records. Its challenge helped set the stage for SB 391, which the Legislature pushed into law after overriding Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto in April 2026. The new statute bars cities and counties from adopting or enforcing ordinances that require landlords to lease to voucher holders or otherwise restrict a landlord’s ability to consider a tenant’s income source.

For Lawrence, the rollback reaches beyond one ordinance. It removes a local tool that housing advocates viewed as a way to reduce homelessness risk, keep rental assistance usable and make more apartments available to low-income families in a tight market. By July 1, those protections will be gone, and the city will have to decide how much of that access it can preserve without the rule that made it possible.