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Lack of access to housing is the largest remaining impediment to full community integration for <br />persons with disabilities in the county. Stakeholders expressed frustration with the lack of <br />information on accessible affordable housing units and are required to call individual landlords to <br />obtain this information. <br />b. Consider adopting the accessibility standards adopted by the City of Los Angeles, which <br />require at least 15% of all new units in city -supported LIHTC projects to be ADA- <br />accessible with at least 4% of total units to be accessible for persons with hearing and/or <br />vision disabilities. <br />In order to align with the Voluntary Compliance Agreement (VCA) between the City of Los <br />Angeles and HUD, Orange County should consider adopting the same standards; nearby Santa <br />Monica is also planning to confirm to the requirements in the VCA. <br />IV. Goal 4: Ensure equal access to housing for persons with protected characteristics, who are <br />disproportionately likely to be lower -income and to experience homelessness. <br />a. Reduce barriers to accessing rental housing by eliminating application fees for voucher <br />holders and encouraging landlords to follow HUD's guidance on the use of criminal <br />backgrounds in screening tenants. <br />Stakeholders reported that high application fees for rental housing are a significant barrier for <br />voucher holders. Additionally, some landlords to continue to refuse rental housing to prospective <br />tenants based on decades -old criminal background checks or minor misdemeanors. <br />b. Incorporate a fair housing equity analysis into the review of significant rezoning proposals <br />and specific plans. <br />At times, large scale development and redevelopment efforts have not sufficiently addressed the <br />needs of large families with children, persons with disabilities, and Hispanic and Vietnamese <br />residents, in particular. By incorporating a fair housing analysis in the review process for <br />redevelopment plans at an early stage, planning staff for municipalities could catch issues such as <br />the distribution of unit sizes in proposed developments while it is still feasible to amend plans. <br />V. Goal 5: Expand access to opportunity for protected classes. <br />a. Explore the voluntary adoption of Small Area Fair Market Rents or exception payment <br />standards in order to increase access to higher opportunity areas for Housing Choice <br />Voucher holders. <br />A significant barrier in the county is the lack of affordable housing and the sufficiency of payment <br />standards to provide geographic options to voucher holders. Orange County Housing Authority <br />has three payment standards; basic, central, and restricted. HUD's Small Area FMRs for Orange <br />County permit certain zip codes to have higher payment standards than those currently used. <br />276 <br />75A-555 <br />