Testers were instructed to ask for an application if not offered one by the manager or owner. Background Families face particularly difficult challenges in finding suitable rental housing in Napa with its low vacancy rate. All too often, the Fair Housing Program receives calls from frustrated parents who have tirelessly searched for a unit with no success. This problem becomes acute for families confronting time pressure, such as residents in transitional housing or Section 8 program participants with a deadline. Additionally, large families, requiring a unit with 3 or more bedrooms, have an exceptionally hard time, given the scarcity of units of that size.
Rental houses are few, and many fall out of the price range of low to moderate income applicants.
The units to be tested were selected at random from the classified listings in the Napa Valley Register for apartments, houses, condos and duplexes. Testers selected only 2-bedroom units. Occupancy standards are a fairly grey area of fair housing law, but nevertheless a very important topic for testing, as our audit findings reveal. The testers were all white women. Typically, the on-site tests lasted about fifteen minutes.