Section 8 Tenant is painting our house without approval and refusing to pay full rent

[Marie Magno]

We have a very complex issue and are in dire need of help. 

Backstory: Our dad rented to section 8 population because his last eviction process (with tenant A) cost him $10,000 just to evict. “Tenant A” damaged our dad’s property and refused to pay rent for 8 months. Since then, our dad signed up for section 8 San Diego Housing so that he could at least have some guarantee of rent payments.

Unfortunately, the new tenant from section 8 (Tenant B), has not been paying full rent since 2022. She is sometimes short between $20-$300 every month. Recently, she has decided to paint our property without our permission as well.

We are having issues locating the original lease agreement with section 8 because our dad got diagnosed with dementia last year. We are also scared to evict the tenant because of our dad’s $10,000 eviction history with previous “Tenant A”. So all in all, “Tenant B” is abusing our dad by taking advantage of him because “Tenant B” is always short rent and continues to breach her contract due to our dads dementia diagnosis. 

Does anyone have advice for us? 

[Lynn McGeein]

@Marie Magno different state, but whenever we had issues with our Section 8 tenant we contacted her assigned case worker who would help the tenant understand that she would lose her voucher and face eviction if she did not comply with the lease, paying her portion and following lease terms. Also, we inherited that tenant when buying the property at a foreclosure sale and section 8 was very helpful in providing all documentation, last signed lease, renewal or rent increase instructions, inspection information, etc. May be different in your state but worth a try.