Section 8 in Prince George's County, Maryland

[Lenzy Ruffin]

I've read a number of discussions on BP regarding the pros and cons of renting to Section 8 tenants. My personal synopsis of what I've read is that success/satisfaction with the Section 8 program distills to a handful of things:

1) Proper (rigorous) tenant screening.

2) A willingness to commit to learning all the ins and outs of the program...in other words, committing the time and effort required to become a Section 8 expert. It seems that landlords who focus on and specialize in Section 8 don't have the problems that landlords who are more casually participating in the program do.

3) The quality of the local housing authority that administers the program. From what I've read, the housing authority can be anywhere on the spectrum from outright hostile to landlords to being a landlord's best friend with regard to dealing with bad tenants. 

I'm not looking to rehash the pros and cons of Section 8 in this discussion. What I'm interested in is input on #3 with regard to Prince George's County, MD. For those landlords who participate in the Section 8 program in Prince George's County, MD and do their due diligence as far as screening their tenants properly, how would you characterize the housing authority? Are they a good partner in administering the program or are they more of an adversary? Or somewhere in the middle?