HI Deborah,
I know from personal experience that we are no longer preferring to rent to S8 because they inspection process has been taking forever, they mess up paperwork and generally just take way longer to process a new tenant into a home than they used to. Also, they have lowered their rent amounts they are willing to give, so to wait on average an extra month and a half (at least!) to get a tenant in is not really worth the hassle. They also have started forcing some of our long time tenants out of homes that they wanted to stay in.
That's just an answer from a landlord's point of view.

The government has decided to cut domestic spending programs, and social services programs that assist the poor: medicaid, medicare, employment assistance programs, housing programs, heating assistance programs etc. Landlords & Investors would rather have individuals whom are not connected to programs like Section 8 & Eden, etc. The job market is still unstable and there could be more layoffs but a tenant with stability is more likely to pay the rent and will have lesser social ills drug affiliation, criminal histories, alcoholism, etc. I am just saying......I know we all have to live somewhere. I know, right?