Accepting Housing Choice Vouchers in San Antonio: The Opportunity Home Process, HQS Inspections, and HAP Contracts

Texas has no statewide source-of-income protection, and San Antonio has not enacted one. You can decline a Housing Choice Voucher applicant the same way you'd decline any other applicant — through consistent written screening criteria. But if you accept one, you're entering a specific administrative process run by Opportunity Home San Antonio (the agency formerly known as SAHA), and the timing, paperwork, and inspection standards are non-negotiable.

Done right, a voucher tenancy gives you a government-guaranteed portion of rent wired on the first of the month, a tenant who has real skin in maintaining eligibility, and a re-lease pool that pays attention when you post a unit. Done wrong, you sit vacant for 45 days waiting on an inspection because your smoke detector is missing a battery.

What the voucher actually is

The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program is federal — HUD funds it, and Opportunity Home San Antonio administers it locally for most of Bexar County. The tenant qualifies based on income (typically under 50% of area median income) and receives a voucher that subsidizes rent at a private-market unit of their choosing. The tenant pays roughly 30% of adjusted monthly income toward rent and utilities; the housing authority pays the rest, up to a Payment Standard tied to the unit's bedroom size and ZIP code.

You are not renting to the government. You are renting to the tenant, under a normal Texas lease, with a separate Housing Assistance Payments (HAP) contract layered on top between you and Opportunity Home.

The Request for Tenancy Approval

When a voucher holder wants to lease your unit, they hand you a Request for Tenancy Approval (often called the RFTA or RTA packet). You complete it, sign it, and the tenant submits it to Opportunity Home. It asks for:

• Proposed rent and security deposit
• Which utilities the tenant pays vs which are included (CPS Energy for electric/gas, SAWS for water and sewer — get this right, because it feeds the utility allowance calculation)
• Owner tax ID and payment routing (direct deposit is standard)
• A copy of the proposed lease

Submit the RFTA the day you receive it. Everything downstream is gated on this document.

Rent reasonableness and the Payment Standard

Two separate rent tests apply, and both must pass:

1. Rent reasonableness — Opportunity Home pulls comps and confirms your proposed rent is in line with unassisted units of comparable size, condition, and location. If you're asking $1,650 for a 3/2 in 78227 and the comps land at $1,450, they will counter or deny.
2. Payment Standard — HUD publishes Fair Market Rents annually; the local Payment Standard is set as a percentage of FMR by bedroom count and sometimes by ZIP under a Small Area FMR framework. The tenant cannot pay more than 40% of adjusted monthly income toward rent at initial lease-up, which effectively caps how far above the Payment Standard your rent can go.

You can find current Payment Standards and utility allowances on the Opportunity Home website. Do not price a voucher unit without pulling them first.

The HQS (now NSPIRE) inspection

Before the HAP contract is signed, the unit must pass a housing quality inspection. HUD is transitioning from Housing Quality Standards (HQS) to the National Standards for the Physical Inspection of Real Estate (NSPIRE), so the checklist name may vary depending on when you read this, but the practical failure points are consistent.

Common San Antonio fails:

• Missing or non-functional smoke detector on every level and in every bedroom; CO detector required near sleeping areas if there's gas or an attached garage
• Uncovered outlets, reversed polarity, or missing GFCI in kitchens and bathrooms
• Handrails missing on any run of 4+ steps, interior or exterior
• Window locks broken, or bedroom windows painted shut (egress issue)
• Chipped or peeling paint in pre-1978 units (lead-based paint concern — you also owe the tenant the federal EPA lead pamphlet and TREC's OP-L addendum equivalent disclosures)
• Water heater without a temperature/pressure relief discharge line to within 6 inches of the floor
• HVAC not cooling — this one matters more here than in most of the country; a July inspection with a 78-degree indoor reading will fail
• Missing threshold seals or holes to exterior (pest entry)

Inspections in Bexar County have run anywhere from a week to a month out depending on inspector load. If you fail, you get a punch list and a re-inspection date. Fix everything before the re-inspection — a second fail resets you in the queue.

The HAP contract and your lease

Once the unit passes and rent is approved, you sign three documents almost simultaneously:

• The lease between you and the tenant. Use your standard Texas lease (a Texas Apartment Association form, or a customized attorney-drafted lease). It must be for at least 12 months at initial term.
• The HUD Tenancy Addendum, which is federally required and attaches to your lease. Its terms override anything conflicting in your lease.
• The HAP contract between you and Opportunity Home, which spells out the monthly HAP payment, the tenant portion, and the effective date.

The HAP contract's effective date is the earliest you'll be paid. If the tenant moves in before that date, that's on you — you won't get subsidy for those days.

Deposits, fees, and what you can't do

• Security deposit: You can charge one, but it can't exceed what you'd charge a non-voucher tenant for the same unit. Document your standard in writing.
• Application fee: You can charge one, as long as it's the same amount you charge all applicants. Screen the tenant the same way — credit, criminal, and rental history against consistent written criteria (see § 92.3515 for the required screening criteria notice).
• Side payments: Illegal. You cannot collect anything above the contract rent from the tenant — no "extra" for a pet, no "extra" because the Payment Standard came in low. A pet deposit that applies to all tenants under your standard pet policy is fine; a rent bump aimed only at the voucher tenant is fraud.
• Late fees: Governed by Texas Property Code § 92.019 — reasonable, disclosed in the lease, and not before the 3rd day. Voucher status doesn't change this.

Monthly rhythm and annual recerts

Opportunity Home pays their portion via ACH around the 1st. The tenant portion is your responsibility to collect directly from the tenant, on the same terms as any other renter. If the tenant stops paying their share, you pursue eviction in Bexar County JP court like any other nonpayment case — 3-day notice to vacate under § 24.005, then petition in the correct precinct — but you also notify Opportunity Home in writing at the same time. The HAP payments continue until the housing authority terminates assistance or the tenant vacates.

Every year, the tenant recertifies income. Their portion and your HAP portion may shift. Every year (or every other year under NSPIRE, depending on prior scoring), the unit is re-inspected. Same failure points — fix them proactively at turnover.

What most people get wrong

• Assuming the housing authority is the tenant. It isn't. Your lease is with the person. If they trash the unit, you sue them, not Opportunity Home.
• Skipping the screening. Voucher approval means income-eligible. It says nothing about eviction history, criminal background, or prior landlord references. Run your standard screen.
• Overpricing on the RFTA. Rent reasonableness will fail and the file bounces back. Price at market from day one; you can always renew with a modest increase later, subject to the Payment Standard.
• Ignoring the punch list until re-inspection day. The re-inspection window is short. Fix the chipped paint, install the smoke detector, torque the handrail, and take dated photos.
• Charging the tenant side money to cover a "gap." This is the single fastest way to get banned from the program and referred to HUD's Office of Inspector General.
• Confusing CPS Energy and SAWS on the utility allowance sheet. CPS is electric and gas; SAWS is water and sewer. Marking water under CPS will scramble the tenant's utility allowance and cost you rent.
• Terminating for "no cause" mid-term. The HUD Tenancy Addendum limits your grounds. During the initial lease term, you generally need cause. At renewal, Texas notice rules apply, but you still notify Opportunity Home.

When it's worth doing

Voucher tenancies work best on stable, well-maintained 2-3 bedroom homes in ZIPs where the Payment Standard is at or slightly above your market rent — much of the south, west, and near-east side, and portions of the northeast around Judson ISD and East Central ISD. In high-rent submarkets like 78209, 78258, or 78256, the Payment Standard rarely reaches market and the math usually doesn't pencil.

If you're weighing whether to accept vouchers on your next lease-up, list the unit on HomeFinder at /list-your-home so it's visible to voucher holders searching Bexar County, and browse comparable rentals at /rentals to sanity-check your number before you submit the RFTA. For a full walkthrough of landlord operations in San Antonio, /resources has the rest of the pillar.