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Landlords Face Pressure on Criminal Background Checks
Apartment landlords’ use of electronic criminal-background checks to reject prospective renters, some with only minor legal blemishes, drew official rebuke Monday as a potential violation of housing-discrimination laws.
Criticism of the practice has been mounting in recent months as technology has made it possible for apartment owners to perform fast, cheap and wide-ranging criminal background checks with the click of a button instead of scouring records at a local courthouse.
As apartment vacancy rates have dropped near their lowest point in more than a decade, it has become easier for landlords to impose stricter standards for applicants. In some cases, however, legal aid lawyers say clients are being disqualified for minor infractions committed years or even decades earlier.
“It used to be that if somebody was a smaller landlord, they would never check for a criminal background, because it’s hard,” said JoAnne Page, president of the Fortune Society, a New York nonprofit that helps people released from prison reintegrate into society. “But now it’s so easy. Essentially people just keep getting punished, for life.”
Landlords say screening prospective tenants to ensure they don’t have a history of violence or dishonesty makes the building more secure for neighbors and building staff alike. In many cases, landlords impose firm policies to clean up buildings beset by drug dealing and violent crime.
“We all want to feel safe in our homes,” said Paula Cino, a vice president at the National Multifamily Housing Council. “It is critical to balance the housing needs for everybody with providing a safe and secure community.”
Fair-housing lawyers say that they aren’t opposed to background checks, but that searches shouldn’t be used to reject tenants automatically. They say landlords should be required to perform an individual assessment of the severity of the offense, the length of time that has passed and whether it is relevant to whether an applicant will be a good tenant.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on Monday released guidance that could give ammunition to tenant advocates, saying the practice of excluding tenants based on their criminal or arrest records could violate the Fair Housing Act where it has a disproportionate impact on blacks and Hispanics.
When Benigno Herrera found out he was rejected for an apartment in Austin, Texas, earlier this year, he was surprised to find out the reason: a drunken-driving conviction from 1980.
Mr. Herrera, 70 years old, has been convicted of no crimes since then, according to a copy of his background report provided by his legal-aid lawyer, Fred Fuchs. When Mr. Herrera applied for U.S. citizenship a few years ago, the matter never came up, he said. Unable to rent, he has been sleeping on family members’ couches or in his truck.
Now some tenant advocates are gearing up for a legal fight with landlords. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonprofit legal-services organization, is looking into 13 landlords across a dozen states to see whether they imposed “blanket bans” on tenants with criminal records.
“We’ve just got to force more public attention on this area,” said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the group.
A case in New York City could be the first major test of whether excluding tenants based on criminal records is against the law since the Supreme Court strengthened the country’s fair-housing laws last year.
The Fortune Society in late 2014 brought a civil lawsuit in a U.S. district court against the owner of the SandCastle Apartments, a multibuilding complex in Queens, N.Y.
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According to court documents, the Fortune Society attempted to rent units for some of its clients in 2013 at the SandCastle and were told units weren’t available to people with criminal records. More than 90% of Fortune’s clients are African-American or Latino.
Although people with criminal records aren’t directly protected by housing-discrimination laws, the basis for the group’s claim is that criminal-record checks in effect discriminate against African-Americans and Latinos because they make up a larger portion of the prison population.
Fortune’s lawyers plan to file a motion for summary judgment in a few weeks. A lawyer for SandCastle declined to comment on behalf of his client.
National landlord groups and screening companies say they agree that landlords should assess the type of offense and how long ago it occurred, but that small- and midsize landlords don’t always know that. They also are concerned that the growing opposition to background checks will lead to overzealous local laws that make it difficult to exclude tenants when it is justified.
“It’s matter of industry education that having a standard that a felony equals no rent is not a good one,” said Bill Bower, chief executive of Contemporary Information Corp., a tenant-screening company.
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law has asked landlords in several states to provide information on their rental policies, the number of tenants with criminal backgrounds and characteristics of those who have been rejected.
One of the buildings under review, the Colina Square Apartments in Sammamish, Wash., says on its website, “In order to pass our screening process you must: #1 Have no criminal history. This includes DUIs, misdemeanors and felonies.”
Kimberly Lester, the manager for Colina Square, said having a consistent policy banning people with criminal records leaves less room for discrimination than picking and choosing among applicants. Residents “feel more comfortable living next to someone who has not been in a bar fight or drunk driving,” she said.
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