Doctoral Dissertation Research: Tenant Screening in the Information Age: Implications for Housing Access

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

SES-1636961 Katherine Beckett Anna Reosti University of Washington This project investigates the implications of modern background screening procedures for rental housing access and discrimination in the Seattle metropolitan area. In recent years fair housing advocates have raised concerns regarding the potential discriminatory impacts of the shift toward more information-intense screening practices in the private rental housing market, which utilize commercial background search tools to examine applicants' criminal, credit and eviction histories. In response to such concerns, policymakers in some U.S. jurisdictions have recently made calls to regulate how background check information is used to evaluate rental applicants, particularly with respect to criminal records. In contrast to the employment sphere, few scholars to date have investigated whether and how modern background screening procedures in rental housing provide new opportunities for discrimination, or explored how relevant actors on the ground, such as landlords and tenants, understand such issues. In an effort to remedy those gaps, this dissertation project investigate tenant screening practices from the dual perspectives of rental housing providers and renters who have recently applied for housing. Interviews with renters who have moved within the last six months will identify understudied impediments to housing access, particularly for renters with discrediting background characteristics such as criminal histories, past evictions and/or damaged credit. That knowledge may help fair and affordable housing advocates and social workers in their efforts to improve rental housing access. Interviews with a group of landlords meanwhile will illuminate what motivates those respondents? approaches to screening applicants and help call attention to institutional dynamics that could frustrate legal reform efforts to advance equity in housing access by regulating background screening practices (e.g. fears of financial liability that discourage landlords from renting to applicants with criminal records). These interviews will be conducted in the wake of the recent release of legal guidance from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) instructing private rental housing providers that policies which categorically exclude applicants with criminal records could run afoul of the Fair Housing Act, and in a metropolitan area where a campaign to "Ban-the-Box", or regulate criminal history screening in housing, is currently underway. As such this research should make a timely contribution to ongoing policy ongoing discussions around how to ensure that tenant screening procedures do not unnecessarily jeopardize fair and equal access to rental housing. This study is also poised to make important contributions to multiple bodies of academic scholarship, including the sociological literatures on the collateral consequences of a criminal record, and socio-legal work on anti-discrimination law in action.