When asked to describe yourself, you may share details of your character, hobbies, or passions. Those close to you may delight in your sense of humor, reveling in your quirks and loving you because of them. They undoubtedly want what is good for you; any one of them would say of course you deserve a place to lay your head at night. Perhaps some landlords care about these details when deciding who to approve for their units, but, if they do, the application process seldom shows it.
Rental applications don’t ask for ice breakers. They ask how much your job is paying you, what credit score a bank is giving you, and what labels the criminal justice system has assigned to you. Landlords are more interested in you as a potential liability, not a person. This standard has empirically been used to deprive people of one of life’s most basic necessities.
It only takes seconds for an algorithm to sift through countless public records and decide whether or not someone gets to have a place to lay their head at night. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, tenant screenings include a prospective tenant’s credit report, rental history, employment verification, criminal background, and a “risk score” that summarizes how much of a liability that tenant may be.
Pennsylvania landlord-tenant law typically sides with landlords, leaving renters vulnerable to predatory practices that could hinder their ability to remain in or find future housing.
Tenant screenings are frequently a misrepresentation of a person’s ability to be a reliable renter or owner. According to a 2020 investigation done by Markup and The New York Times, there are many instances where these screenings are incorrect, linking criminal charges, evictions, or credit reports to the wrong applicant. Knowing when screenings are incorrect and disputing known claims can be a difficult, grueling process for those in between homes.
Negative rental information, such as instances of eviction and criminal backgrounds (regardless of its accuracy), have a significant influence over whether a person can get approved for housing or loans for housing. Even when screening information is correct, the prosecution of an individual for actions they may do because of their past is not sufficient reason to deny anyone shelter, especially when one considers the rampant racial discrimination in the U.S. justice system and unexpected financial hardships one may experience.
“My credit score is not good. Every time you think you’re ahead, something else hits you back,” said one York City resident. “I had death after death, after death, and when people don’t have insurance, you got to pay for that all. Things happen, and [screening services] just don’t take that into account.”
Private landlords with only a handful of properties to manage are more equipped to evaluate rental applications personally and take these circumstances into consideration. However, larger property management companies with sometimes thousands of properties to manage saturate the York rental market. Oftentimes, these companies will use algorithm-based softwares to sort through the mass capacity of rental applications they receive, leaving less room for these individual considerations.
There are some solutions that one can consider to alleviate the barriers those in need of rental housing experience. Differentiating between no-fault and at-fault evictions is one way to tell if someone was evicted due to external causes such as their building being sold or due to a breach of the lease. Factoring on-time rental payments into credit scores is another way to set renters up for success when searching for a home. Finally, some governments have prohibited or significantly regulated a landlord’s ability to perform tenant screenings when evaluating rental applications.
Those are just a few of the many much needed tenant protections that would help eliminate barriers to housing. Pennsylvania landlord-tenant law typically sides with landlords, leaving renters vulnerable to predatory practices that could hinder their ability to remain in or find future housing. Tenant screening regulations are necessary to make the process of getting a roof over one’s head simpler.
