June 11, 2025 • 39 mins
In the U.S., approximately 3.6 million households are threatened by eviction each year, and for many, the consequences last long after the eviction itself. Even if individuals avoid losing their homes, eviction records can prevent them from securing future housing. This happens because landlords use tools that screen the rental, credit, employment, income and criminal histories of tenants—often without context or accuracy.
In this sponsored episode produced in partnership with Results for America, we discuss a proven solution: tenant screening protections. We explore how these safeguards can protect renters by ensuring fair access to housing, and we learn how communities can implement these protections to help more people secure stable homes.
Guests on this episode include Brittany Giroux Lane, Director of the Solutions Accelerator at Results for America, Marie Claire Tran-Leung, Evictions Initiative Project Director at the National Housing Law Project, and Rasheedah Phillips, Director of Housing at PolicyLink. They dive into the importance of tenant screening protections and how these initiatives can help create more equitable access to housing.
In this sponsored episode produced in partnership with Results for America, we discuss a proven solution: tenant screening protections. We explore how these safeguards can protect renters by ensuring fair access to housing, and we learn how communities can implement these protections to help more people secure stable homes.
Guests on this episode include Brittany Giroux Lane, Director of the Solutions Accelerator at Results for America, Marie Claire Tran-Leung, Evictions Initiative Project Director at the National Housing Law Project, and Rasheedah Phillips, Director of Housing at PolicyLink. They dive into the importance of tenant screening protections and how these initiatives can help create more equitable access to housing.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Strawut media, and so even a single blemish on someone's record,
whether it was recently, whether it was decades.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Ago, it can significantly reduce the chances of finding safe,
affordable housing.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
This is Lucas Grinley from Next City, a show about
change makers and their stories. Truth is, there are solutions
to the problems of pressing people in cities. If you're listening,
I hope it's because you want to spread good ideas
from one city to the next city. Each year, about
three point six million American households face eviction, which is
an enormous number, and we know it so big, partly
(00:47):
because there are records. But what you might not know
is that eviction records are often used to keep people
out of homes. Even if someone avoids losing their home,
the record alone can make it nearly impossible to find
housing in the future. That's because landlords overwhelmingly rely on
screening tools that turn our complex histories into simple red
(01:07):
flags without context or often accuracy. Probably it's no surprise
that these practices disproportionately affect people of color, families with children,
older adults, and people with disabilities. Today, we're partnering with
Results for America on this sponsored episode about a proven
solution and if you're one of the people who want
to do something about it, stay tuned the end of
(01:29):
this episode because we'll hear from Britney Drew Lane from
Results for America about a free opportunity for local leaders
to join a virtual Solutions Sprint, which is designed to
help you learn from experts and your peers as you
implement evidence based housing protections. But let's start by getting
the whole story about what's going on in our country.
Our guests include two of the five implementing partners in
(01:50):
this work. Marie Claire Trandewung from the National Housing Law
Project will join us to talk about how to leverage
the current moment. And first up, we'll hear from Rashida Phillips,
director of Housing at Policy Link, who helps us understand
the scope of the problem and what some real solutions
look like.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
So more and more people are finding that stable and
affordable housing is increasingly becoming out of reach. In fact,
we know that one in two renter households now spend
more than thirty percent of their income on rent, which
classifies them as housing costs burden. And then even more
concerning is that one in four renter households are severely
(02:31):
housing costs birded, meaning they're paying over half of their
income that goes solely towards paying their rent. And this
level of financial strain is leaving very little room for
households to be able to afford anything else. So whether
it's food, it's healthcare, emergency expenses, it makes these households
extremely vulnerable to eviction, you know, because they have to
(02:55):
divide up their money in ways that don't make sense.
And as a result, we're starting to see eviction rates
surge across the country. There was a period of time
during a pandemic because of all of the rental protections
that came about, where we saw significant decreases in evictions,
but now we're starting to see those eviction rates spike again.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Eviction triggers a ripple effect. Rashida points to research connecting
eviction to serious and long lasting mental and physical health problems,
the loss of your healthcare, even increased risk of dying.
For children, housing insecurity means food insecurity, and an infant's
eviction is linked to premature birth or low birth weight,
which is a problem that can put that child's life
(03:40):
on a more dangerous trajectory, and.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
The harm doesn't end once someone finds new housing. Right.
Those evictions leave a record. Even if there wasn't a
formal eviction, right, there is still a record, and that
record follows people long into the future and limits their
ability to secure stable housing for the their lives, you know,
ever again. And so this brings us to tenant screening,
(04:05):
which is one of the major ways that evictions exert
their long term impact, particularly eviction records, and so tenet
screening refers to the formal and informal background checks that
landlords are using when they're evaluating prospective renters. And these
screenings often include an applicant's financial history, their criminal background,
(04:30):
as well as their rental history, and it includes prior
evictions as well. And so even a single blemish on
someone's record, whether it was recently, whether it was decades ago,
it can significantly reduce the chances of finding safe, affordable housing.
So there's two main sources of information for this data.
(04:54):
There are third party screening companies and open access databases
that collect and publish personal information, and both sources are
notorious for containing errors, yet they play a central role
in determining who gets approved for housing and who doesn't.
And as a result, especially tenants, especially those who have
(05:16):
fewer financial resources, often end up spending more time and
money to try to secure housing and then often end
up with repeated rejections and having to pay extra fees,
having to pay for tons of you know, dozens of
applications and don't get that money returned to them, right,
So they're losing money along the way. And the fact
(05:39):
is that landlords frequently refuse to rent to applicants even
with just one eviction on their record, and again that
is regardless of the outcome. And so for many a
single eviction or eviction record ends up locking them out
of quality housing again for years.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
So why is this problem for the most vulnerable people
who the Federal Fair Housing Act is supposed to protect. Well,
there are a lot of reasons. Rashida will walk us.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Through a few.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
So, for example, people of color, especially black and LATINX individuals,
LGBTQIA people plus people, and women are overrepresented in the
criminal legal system, and as a result, the use of
criminal records in tenet screening can often unfairly target and
exclude those groups from housing opportunities, and the logic behind
(06:35):
many TenneT screening tools assumes that more records means greater risk,
but that's actually a pretty flawed and discriminatory assumption. So
criminal records are not always and often are not an
accurate predictor of someone's success as a tenant. Yet algorithmic
products often take a person's complex history and package it
(06:59):
into simplify metrics that landlords use to automate denials. And
then beyond that, other factors frequently used in tenet screening
create similar barriers, and so source of income, for example,
is a common reason for denial. Many landlords and screening
companies can refuse applicants or tend to refuse applicants who
(07:19):
have housing vouchers or other non traditional income sources. And
then we also see credit history as another barrier. And
then as more people face a hospital stay, a car accident,
death in the family, something that can be a one
time hardship or something that's ongoing, but either way, we
(07:39):
see that there's impacts from evictions to eviction records, and
then things that show up intenet screening. Where I come
from Philadelphia, for example, over seventy percent of the evictions
that get filed are against black and LATINX households.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
The problem is clear screening tools reduce people to metrics
that don't actually predict how they'll do as tenants, and
those tools disproportionately block out black and LATINX women. And
today we're talking about a solution, pushing for tenants greening
protections that make sure that someone's past doesn't unfairly determine
their future.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
One way that that can be achieved is by selling
eviction records. And so we see that this protection helps
to prevent a past eviction from following someone indefinitely and
impacting their ability to find stable housing. And then another
approach that's part of tenants greening protections is limiting the
kind of information that landlords are able to use, and so,
(08:44):
for example, limiting how far back you can use eviction
records when making rental decisions. And that's again because eviction records,
as I talked about earlier, can be misleading, can be outdated,
can be just straight up wrong. And so in fact,
we know that nearly a quarter of eviction records, about
(09:04):
twenty two percent, contains significant inaccuracies. And then there's also
growing concern about how landlords are using technology in the
screening process, and so automated systems and algorithms that end
up replicating and even amplifying existing biases can be regulated
by some of these tools, and it is becoming more
(09:25):
and more important the more that AI proliferates. And again,
these policies take several different forms. So for instance, jurisdictions
may require landlords to use uniform screening criteria. They may
spell out exactly what kinds of criteria are acceptable when
evaluating a potential tenet. Is another way that these show up,
(09:47):
and then other options is requiring a more holistic approach
and so one that is going to take into account
the full context of a tenant situation rather than relying
on single points of data or you know, criteria that
really flattens the ability to gain more context or more
information about an applicant. Some policies we see also prohibit
(10:12):
blanket ban evictions or prohibit blanket bands based on someone's
credit score or criminal record or rental history alone. So
essentially that means that for these protections, landlords can't have
policies that says, hey, one strike, you're out. One eviction
record or one criminal record, you're out, We're not even
(10:35):
going to consider you, or if you have a particular
type of score, we're not even going to consider your application. Right,
so it creates more holistic screening criteria, and then others
limit how far back again a screening can look into
a person's background, or restrict what consumer reporting agencies can
include in their reports. And we are seeing some progress. So,
(10:57):
between twenty twenty and twenty twenty two, twelve jurisdictions enacted
tenant screening protections and since twenty twenty three, seven more
have followed suit, and currently over ten additional jurisdictions have
active or recent campaigns pushing for these reforms, and so
the momentum is really clear. Tenants are pushing back, advocates
(11:18):
are pushing back against the systems that entrench housing inequities,
and really are demanding fairer and more just approaches to
housing access.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
Probably the most important point of all of this is
that states and counties and cities don't have to wait
on the federal government right like, they can get started
on doing things. Now, what are some examples. I mean,
you mentioned that there were twelve jurisdictions that had advanced
protections even recently, what are some good examples where people
can look for for inspiration to know what is possible.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yeah, so we've seen some bills get recently introduced in
Hawaii at the state level around the viction pursuing. California
has a strong law that's been in place for quite
a while and so it has some evidence backed. Uh,
it's an evidence backed protection to see how many people
it's been impacting. So there are different levels of strength
(12:16):
and different choices that jurisdictions have to make around like
what kind of you know, protection is going to work
for them, What what can they get past, what's going
to be you know, sort of applicable to to their
what their community needs. But when I talked about uniform
screening criteria, there's sort of two ways that it can
be looked at. Uniform screening criteria can either be that
(12:37):
like the screening criteria that a landlord has to consider
is proscribed through the law, and so the law says specifically,
here's what can be considered and the criteria outside of
what is listed here or named here can't be considered.
And then how it's used in the Philadelphia Renter's Access Act,
which is a tenet screening protection law. Uniform screening criteria means,
(13:00):
for the purposes of that law, that every applicant has
to get the same set of criteria. So it doesn't
say what that criteria has to be. It does have
some baselines around, like you can't consider certain types of
eviction records, et cetera, but it doesn't otherwise proscribe what
the screening criteria is. It just says that each person
has to get the same set of criteria. So you
(13:23):
can't have a set of criteria for one applicant that
is different for the next applicant. So that's what uniform
screening criteria means in that context, and it's meant as
a fair housing protection to ensure that, you know, black
women and families with children aren't getting a different set
of criteria than another applicant is getting. You can get innovative,
(13:46):
you can pair different types of things depending on what
the needs of that community is. And for Philadelphia, you know,
as we were working at the state level to try
to get in aviction record silling policy passed, we were
working at the local level to ensure that eviction records
had less of an impact on people's ability to access housing.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
After the break. Marie Claire traned Ung from the National
Housing Law Project explains how local leaders can use recent
federal guidance to take action even without strong support from Washington.
Welcome Back. Earlier, Rashida Phillips from Policy Link laid out
(14:29):
both the problem and a solution, how flawed screening tools
unfairly shut people out of housing, especially black and LATINX women,
and how stronger tenant screening protections can help ensure that
past hardships don't dictate someone's future. The good news is
HUD issued guidance that making decisions based on eviction or
criminal records can raise serious fair housing concerns. Now, Marie
(14:51):
Claire tran Ung from the National Housing Law Project explains
how to build on that momentum, especially when the Federal
Department of Housing and Urban Development that acted now have
is not the same ally they once had last year.
Speaker 5 (15:07):
Now, of course, since the beginning of the current administration,
we've seen a number of attacks both on HUT generally
and on principles of fair housing, and so some of
you may be wondering, well, how useful is this guidance today?
We may not know exactly what the fate of the
(15:28):
guidance is in the long term. But what we know
is that had had given a really important tool right
now of how these practices can violate the Fair Housing Act.
And although it's really important for HUD to say these things,
what is really important is the underlying legal analysis, because
(15:51):
the fact remains is that there's a lot of case
law that has been evolving for decades that show that
tenants reading practices have a disparate impact on many protected classes,
communities of color, people with disabilities, older adults, and families
(16:12):
with children, among others. And I think what the HUT
guidance provides is a really useful blueprint on the legal
justifications for taking more actions. The other really important guidance
that has come out of the federal agencies within the
last few years is from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
(16:34):
So here the CFPB has provided really two types of
documents that are really helpful in the tenants screening context.
One is reports, so really delving into the research on
the tenant screening industry and their practices. For a long time,
this was really considered the wild wild West, where there
(16:54):
were so many industry players and really not a lot
of sense of what their practices were and how pervasive
they were. And so the CFPB in recent years has
really taken a lot of information such as consumer complaints reports,
data from their enforcement actions to put together two really
(17:15):
important documents that can give state and localities a good
sense of the scope of the problem and how it
may show up in their communities. The other thing that
the CFPB has done is written advisory opinions under a
variety of laws that again provide really important legal analysis
on the ways that the practices from tenant screening companies
(17:38):
and landlords could violate federal laws like the Federal Fare
Credit Reporting Act, which provides a lot of procedural protections
for attendance in the screening process. And so again, like
the HUT guidance, the information itself, it's unclear whether it'll
continue under the federal government, but the underlying legal analysis
(18:01):
still is good because the statutes and the laws that
it relies upon have not changed and can really provide
an important du print for states and localities to make
the changes that they need to.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
So change is still possible. All the work that was
done is not lost. It isn't a race just because
there's a new administration. In fact, Perclayer encourages local leaders
who step into their own power.
Speaker 5 (18:31):
In the absence of federal leadership in the tenant screening space,
States and localities can really seize this moment to protect renters.
And the role of states and localities I think are threefold.
One is that states and localities have the ability to
experiment with innovative solutions, and so there's potential here to
(18:55):
really tinker and think through the ways that you all
can help community members and renters who are experiencing problems
with the tenet screening process in your areas as this happens.
I think there's also a really important ability for states
and localities to lift up the experiences that their community
(19:16):
members are experiencing nationally to help us build out the
scope of what is happening to renters in the ten
screening process. And lastly, the work of states and localities
in this area helped pave the way for progress at
the federal level in the future. So a lot of
(19:36):
the work that I've done has been at the intersection
of housing and criminal records, and back in twenty sixteen
had released a guidance that was really focused on criminal
records specifically, during the first Trump administration, there was less
movement on that area at the federal level, but during
the Trump administration, we saw a lot of really innovative
(20:00):
and groundbreaking work from localities such as Seattle and Cook
County and other places that really created local policies that
really helped renters with records on the ground, and during
those four years. That then led to work with in
(20:24):
hud at the during under the Biden administration to propose
rules that took some of the learnings that happened from
the states and localities. And although we did not necessarily
get a rule around criminal records during the last administration,
that just kind of still can continue to build the
momentum of things of progress in the times screaming space.
(20:48):
So I think, you know, knowing this, the states and
localities were really looking for leadership in this area. Sometimes
we tend to think of places in terms of blue
states and bread states, but really there are so many
opportunities for different jurisdictions to be able to change policies
that can help open the tend screening process for renters
(21:11):
and contribute to people being stably housed. So one is
maybe not so much legal, but really an important component
of this work is the ability to identify the scope
of the problem. And so right now the Tennis screening
process is very much of block box. People might pay
application fees, they might submit a lot of applications, but
(21:33):
people don't actually a lot of times know what type
of criteria spring them out of the process. And so
states and localities have a really important role to try
to identify the scope of the problem. So what could
that look like. That could look like something as simple
as collecting complaints from community members and trying to understand
what is actually happening, what are the emerging trends that
(21:55):
are happening. And I think especially with local government, your
constituents are really looking to you to try to help
them solve their problems and define what the scope of
the problem is. The other really important tool that we've
seen is fair housing testing. That can come from fair
housing organizations, but it can also come from enforcement agencies
(22:17):
within local and state governments like the AG's office, the
local Human Rights Commission, and that has provided a lot
of really helpful information to use in enforcement actions. And
then there's reports, so really getting a sense similar to
what the CFPB did, getting a sense of what is
the scope of the problem in your jurisdiction and bringing
(22:38):
together community members to figure out ways to solve it.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
The bottom line is MarieClaire still sees room to make progress.
Maybe for some states that includes new legislation New Jerseys
Fair Chance Hasing Act as an example, where tenants are
protected against the use of criminal records and screening. But
even if changing your state's law seems out of reach,
Mariclare says, a lot exists within the sphere of influence
for any city.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
But the reality is in a lot of places, legislative
solutions may not be immediately available, and so the other
option or supplement is to think about administrative advocacy. So
what are the ways that you can focus on agencies
at the local level or at the state level to
(23:26):
try to change policies for people in the tenant screening process.
So one is looking at fair housing enforcement. So in California,
which is where I am at, the state has its
own Fair State for Housing regulations that were amended a
number of years ago to govern the tenant screening process
(23:49):
and particularly the use of criminal records in ten and screening.
And that was a really powerful supplement to what was
happening at the federal level. Your state or local fair
housing agency may also have the ability to provide guidance
documents that may be similar to what had provided in
the tenant screening space, and that could provide a lot
(24:10):
of useful guidance to landlords and tenants screening companies within
their jurisdiction. And then the last area to look at
is really enforcement action. So how can state ags play
a role? How can state human rights missions play a
role in making sure that landlords and tennant screening companies
aren't violating the Fairhousing Act or other fair housing protections
(24:35):
in the way they screen tenants. And then the other
big area, So you have fair housing which governs all
types of housing, and then there's the subsidized housing programs,
and I think that's another really important area where states
and localities can think about tenant screening protections. So at
the state level, there are some states that have their
(24:56):
own state subsidized housing programs. That is a a very
useful area to try to impose ten screening protections. The
other place, the other really important place at the state
level is the Low income Housing tax credit program, which
is the largest source of financing for affordable housing right
now nationally, and there's an ability to shift how qualified
(25:22):
allocation plans consider or incorporate admissions policies in the distribution
of those credits. And locally, there's a lot of room
for advocates to work at the public housing space, the
housing Choice voucher space, and also the project based Section
eight space. Each of those has their own admissions policies
(25:44):
where advocates can really make a huge difference in adding
more structure and protections in the ten screening space that
would help a lot of people, especially those who are
in most need this type of housing in this market.
And so if you take one thing away from this,
I think there is a moment right now for state
(26:07):
and localities to take leadership in this area. We have
really wonderful tools, really powerful tools that came from the
federal government that state localities can now use to really
create really necessary and important protections for people so that
the Tennis screening process is fair for everyone.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
Every clear you had mentioned the new Jersey Fair Chance
and Housing Act. Are there any local solutions you want
to raise up as examples that maybe could inspire people.
Speaker 5 (26:36):
You know, one of the areas that I, like I mentioned,
have focused on is on criminal records, and so we
worked on legislation at Incook County that would limit the
use of criminal history records in tenant screening. And I
think that was really useful because one of the goals
(26:58):
of the county that was looking at that was was
to really take a look at what HUD had put
forth in its guidance around criminal records and use that
as a basis for making changes to the human rights
ordinance in Cook County. And I put that out there
(27:19):
as an example because again, the tenant screening guidance that
had released last year may not be something that had
prioritizes in the next four years, but the underlying legal
analysis is very very strong and offers a lot of
useful both useful legal tips but also useful overview of
(27:41):
what the issues how they play out, both for landlords
and tenant screening companies. And so I think the fact
that Cook County kind of modeled in some ways its
ordinance after what had had put forth in that guidance
could be really a useful jumping off point for states
in law localities who want to take what had put
(28:04):
forth in the tennis screening guidance that they released last
year and build upon that in their own legislation.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Are you ready to do something about all this? After
the break? Britney Drew Lane from Results for America shares
how local leaders can get support through a free solution
sprint happening this summer. Welcome back. We've heard how tenant
screening tools, often relying on inaccurate or outdated data, can
(28:35):
shut people out of housing for years. And we've heard
why local action is still possible and so important even
as federal progress remains uncertain. Now, Britney Drew Lane from
Results for America shares a free opportunity for local leaders
to take action through one of their solutions sprints, happening
this summer. Here's Britney.
Speaker 6 (28:57):
Results for America as a nonprofit organization that helps government
leaders harness the power of evidence and data to fund
solutions that work to accelerate economic mobility and improve lives.
And today we're joined by two of our five implementing partners,
who together are supporting communities across the country to advance
fair tenant screening practices and eliminate eviction based barriers to housing.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
One type of program they run at Results for America
are free virtual programs called Solution Sprints, cohort based learning
models designed to help local governments quickly adopt evidence based
policies that improve residence economic mobility.
Speaker 6 (29:38):
Since twenty twenty, the Solutions Accelerator Team at URFA has
run eleven Solution Sprints, supporting over one thousand local and
state decision makers and over one hundred and fifty jurisdictions
to implement evidence based economic mobility solutions through the Solution
Sprint programming. So in the Solution Sprints selection, selected teams
(29:58):
will receive expert guidance on how to design and implement
policies that prevent the harms of eviction records and tenant
screening practices and expand access to affordable housing. So teams
will have space to network and learn alongside and from
other jurisdictions and can, through the sprint, build a coalition
or strengthen coalitions of diverse organizations and sectors that are
(30:22):
working to fight against unfairn discriminatory practices. The sprint itself
consists of eight ninety minute long weekly virtual sessions that
will take place from July ninth to August twenty seventh,
and participants can expect to gain through the Sprint knowledge
on how to design and advocate for and implement policies
(30:43):
that prevent harmful tenant screening practices, can receive one on
one coaching sessions, and have the possibility to access grant funding.
The grant funding is around five to twenty thousand dollars
and it'll be used to support the work of one
or more of the teams that participate in the Sprint
(31:03):
to accelerate their implementation of these practices and programs.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
This might be a question for you, Marie Claire, which
is I believe people who join the Sprint are going
to get strategies to counter the opposition to all of this, right,
So I wonder what's an example of something that you
might typically hear from the opposition and how it could
be counter So.
Speaker 5 (31:27):
I think one argument that we often hear sometimes from
the opposition is that increasing protections in the tenants reading
space may result in less affordable housing being available to tenants.
And I think we've seen that happen in many many
(31:49):
campaigns and being able to sort of bring forth evidence
that that is really oftentimes like a red herring in
this space that communications and narrative tools to help nullify
some of those arguments I think are really important. The
other thing that I think we have seen is that,
(32:12):
you know, maybe industry groups may try to speak on
behalf of landlords as a whole, but at least in
Cook County, one of the things that we was really
important for us was to be able to make relationships
with some of the other landlord groups that may not
have felt like the broader industry groups were representing their interests.
(32:35):
That could be affinity groups, that could be smaller landlord groups,
and so really trying to think through what is the landscape,
the advocacy landscape within a given jurisdiction, and how do
you create a really broad coalition that understands the need
to protect renters and the community wide approaches that can
(32:58):
make that happen.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
If someone's listening and they're interested in this, and they're like, well,
where should I spend my time? Should I be working
on right to counsel or should I be working on
tenants screening or the many other ones? How do you
answer that for them?
Speaker 5 (33:21):
So I guess one thing I'll say is that the
kind of the beauty of this solutions sprint and the
ability to bring together different cohorts from different jurisdictions is
that everyone's going to have probably one slice of this
problem that they're going to prioritize right now. But the
way to make sustainable change is to understand that there's
(33:45):
probably a long term strategy around helping tenants and that
there's different different different interventions that can take place, and
you may your your team may prioritize one for this
particular solutions sprint, but that a plan of a more
comprehensive tenant protection interventions is really going to help to
(34:09):
make things sustainable in the long run. And being able
to see how that's playing out in other jurisdictions while
you're looking at your own, I think is a really
powerful plus of being part of this. So there's definitely
a different interventions at play, but you can sort of
talk with others and learn from others in this space.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
You don't have to do it alone, don't have to
do it all by yourself. Build on that a little bit.
I know you will say it's important to include tenant
voices in the organizing to achieve all these policy changes,
and you, for example, call for like coalitions that are
tenant led so why do you recommend that, Rashida, and
what does that typically look like or ideally look like.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Yeah, definitely for the sprint opportunity, we want the teams
to be as diverse as possible and to have you know,
the necessary stakeholders, tenants being one of them, because they
are the people actually impacted by these eviction records and
screening policies as I talked about, and so really have
(35:13):
a lot of the insight that's needed in terms of
how a policy should be shaped to support them being
able to access housing right, which is the point of
uh these protections. And we've seen in a lot of
places that successful campaigns have emerged from from the ground,
from from tenants themselves. I can speak to this for
(35:34):
particularly for Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Renters Access Act was
very much a tenant led campaign, right it was. It
was led by folks who had actual eviction records that
came about through no fault of their own. They were
mass evicted from housing before their leases had ended and
filed against in eviction court. And so folks years later
(35:56):
were still carrying those eviction records and said, hey, we
need a change here. I'm still not able to access
housing right and so really led the movement in Philadelphia
to get the Renter's Access Act passed. And so that
is why it's important to have those voices represented. And
you know, for the reasons that we don't want to
shape protections that actually are not going to impact the
(36:16):
people who need them. So that would be my plug
for making sure that if you're applying that you try
to have a tenant representation on your team. But I'll
kick it to Brittany in case there's more to add
about what that should look like.
Speaker 6 (36:31):
I really appreciate that, Rashida, and I think we've seen
in other you know, housing accessibility and working on housing
stability how important it is to have tenant leadership. So
we also have a solution sprint upcoming on tenant Right
to Counsel, and it's just really incredibly important to have
that being led by folks who are tenant organizers and
(36:55):
impacted by the challenge and the problem that the solution
is attempting to address. And so we do have more
information specifically about how a team can look you know,
either required team members or recommended team members. And we
also encourage you to Marie Claire's point to think about innovation,
So please do come with us if you think that
(37:17):
there should be additional team members that are really important
to ensuring the advancement of this work within the jurisdiction
or community that you're trying to see this happen in.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
To apply for one of the Solutions Sprints, visit results
for America dot org. That's Results the number four America
dot org and search for the Solution Sprints Calendar. Applications
are accepted on a rolling basis and will close between
three and five weeks before each sprint starts. For this
sprint on tenant protections, they extended the application deadline and
you've gotten until June thirteenth, at midnight Pacific to apply.
(38:07):
We hope you enjoyed this sponsored episode of Next City,
a show about change makers and their stories. Together we
can spread good ideas from one city to the next city.
Thank you for listening this week. Thank you to our
guests Rashida Phillips, director of Housing at PolicyLink, Marie Claire Trandwong,
Eviction's Initiative Project Director at the National Housing Law Project,
and Brittany drew Lane, director of the Solutions Accelerator at
(38:28):
Results for America. This sponsored episode was produced in partnership
with Results for America. You can watch the full webinar
by visiting nextcity dot org slash webinars. Our audio producer
is Slavana Alcala, Our show producer is Maggie Bowles, our
executive producer is Ryan Tillotson, and I'm Lucas Gridley, executive
director for Next City. We'd love to hear any feedback
from our listeners. Please feel free to email us at
(38:48):
info atnexcity dot org and if you haven't already, subscribed
to the show on Apple, Spotify, good Pods, or anywhere
you listen to your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
St
Strawut media, and so even a single blemish on someone's record,
whether it was recently, whether it was decades.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Ago, it can significantly reduce the chances of finding safe,
affordable housing.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
This is Lucas Grinley from Next City, a show about
change makers and their stories. Truth is, there are solutions
to the problems of pressing people in cities. If you're listening,
I hope it's because you want to spread good ideas
from one city to the next city. Each year, about
three point six million American households face eviction, which is
an enormous number, and we know it so big, partly
(00:47):
because there are records. But what you might not know
is that eviction records are often used to keep people
out of homes. Even if someone avoids losing their home,
the record alone can make it nearly impossible to find
housing in the future. That's because landlords overwhelmingly rely on
screening tools that turn our complex histories into simple red
(01:07):
flags without context or often accuracy. Probably it's no surprise
that these practices disproportionately affect people of color, families with children,
older adults, and people with disabilities. Today, we're partnering with
Results for America on this sponsored episode about a proven
solution and if you're one of the people who want
to do something about it, stay tuned the end of
(01:29):
this episode because we'll hear from Britney Drew Lane from
Results for America about a free opportunity for local leaders
to join a virtual Solutions Sprint, which is designed to
help you learn from experts and your peers as you
implement evidence based housing protections. But let's start by getting
the whole story about what's going on in our country.
Our guests include two of the five implementing partners in
(01:50):
this work. Marie Claire Trandewung from the National Housing Law
Project will join us to talk about how to leverage
the current moment. And first up, we'll hear from Rashida Phillips,
director of Housing at Policy Link, who helps us understand
the scope of the problem and what some real solutions
look like.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
So more and more people are finding that stable and
affordable housing is increasingly becoming out of reach. In fact,
we know that one in two renter households now spend
more than thirty percent of their income on rent, which
classifies them as housing costs burden. And then even more
concerning is that one in four renter households are severely
(02:31):
housing costs birded, meaning they're paying over half of their
income that goes solely towards paying their rent. And this
level of financial strain is leaving very little room for
households to be able to afford anything else. So whether
it's food, it's healthcare, emergency expenses, it makes these households
extremely vulnerable to eviction, you know, because they have to
(02:55):
divide up their money in ways that don't make sense.
And as a result, we're starting to see eviction rates
surge across the country. There was a period of time
during a pandemic because of all of the rental protections
that came about, where we saw significant decreases in evictions,
but now we're starting to see those eviction rates spike again.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Eviction triggers a ripple effect. Rashida points to research connecting
eviction to serious and long lasting mental and physical health problems,
the loss of your healthcare, even increased risk of dying.
For children, housing insecurity means food insecurity, and an infant's
eviction is linked to premature birth or low birth weight,
which is a problem that can put that child's life
(03:40):
on a more dangerous trajectory, and.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
The harm doesn't end once someone finds new housing. Right.
Those evictions leave a record. Even if there wasn't a
formal eviction, right, there is still a record, and that
record follows people long into the future and limits their
ability to secure stable housing for the their lives, you know,
ever again. And so this brings us to tenant screening,
(04:05):
which is one of the major ways that evictions exert
their long term impact, particularly eviction records, and so tenet
screening refers to the formal and informal background checks that
landlords are using when they're evaluating prospective renters. And these
screenings often include an applicant's financial history, their criminal background,
(04:30):
as well as their rental history, and it includes prior
evictions as well. And so even a single blemish on
someone's record, whether it was recently, whether it was decades ago,
it can significantly reduce the chances of finding safe, affordable housing.
So there's two main sources of information for this data.
(04:54):
There are third party screening companies and open access databases
that collect and publish personal information, and both sources are
notorious for containing errors, yet they play a central role
in determining who gets approved for housing and who doesn't.
And as a result, especially tenants, especially those who have
(05:16):
fewer financial resources, often end up spending more time and
money to try to secure housing and then often end
up with repeated rejections and having to pay extra fees,
having to pay for tons of you know, dozens of
applications and don't get that money returned to them, right,
So they're losing money along the way. And the fact
(05:39):
is that landlords frequently refuse to rent to applicants even
with just one eviction on their record, and again that
is regardless of the outcome. And so for many a
single eviction or eviction record ends up locking them out
of quality housing again for years.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
So why is this problem for the most vulnerable people
who the Federal Fair Housing Act is supposed to protect. Well,
there are a lot of reasons. Rashida will walk us.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Through a few.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
So, for example, people of color, especially black and LATINX individuals,
LGBTQIA people plus people, and women are overrepresented in the
criminal legal system, and as a result, the use of
criminal records in tenet screening can often unfairly target and
exclude those groups from housing opportunities, and the logic behind
(06:35):
many TenneT screening tools assumes that more records means greater risk,
but that's actually a pretty flawed and discriminatory assumption. So
criminal records are not always and often are not an
accurate predictor of someone's success as a tenant. Yet algorithmic
products often take a person's complex history and package it
(06:59):
into simplify metrics that landlords use to automate denials. And
then beyond that, other factors frequently used in tenet screening
create similar barriers, and so source of income, for example,
is a common reason for denial. Many landlords and screening
companies can refuse applicants or tend to refuse applicants who
(07:19):
have housing vouchers or other non traditional income sources. And
then we also see credit history as another barrier. And
then as more people face a hospital stay, a car accident,
death in the family, something that can be a one
time hardship or something that's ongoing, but either way, we
(07:39):
see that there's impacts from evictions to eviction records, and
then things that show up intenet screening. Where I come
from Philadelphia, for example, over seventy percent of the evictions
that get filed are against black and LATINX households.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
The problem is clear screening tools reduce people to metrics
that don't actually predict how they'll do as tenants, and
those tools disproportionately block out black and LATINX women. And
today we're talking about a solution, pushing for tenants greening
protections that make sure that someone's past doesn't unfairly determine
their future.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
One way that that can be achieved is by selling
eviction records. And so we see that this protection helps
to prevent a past eviction from following someone indefinitely and
impacting their ability to find stable housing. And then another
approach that's part of tenants greening protections is limiting the
kind of information that landlords are able to use, and so,
(08:44):
for example, limiting how far back you can use eviction
records when making rental decisions. And that's again because eviction records,
as I talked about earlier, can be misleading, can be outdated,
can be just straight up wrong. And so in fact,
we know that nearly a quarter of eviction records, about
(09:04):
twenty two percent, contains significant inaccuracies. And then there's also
growing concern about how landlords are using technology in the
screening process, and so automated systems and algorithms that end
up replicating and even amplifying existing biases can be regulated
by some of these tools, and it is becoming more
(09:25):
and more important the more that AI proliferates. And again,
these policies take several different forms. So for instance, jurisdictions
may require landlords to use uniform screening criteria. They may
spell out exactly what kinds of criteria are acceptable when
evaluating a potential tenet. Is another way that these show up,
(09:47):
and then other options is requiring a more holistic approach
and so one that is going to take into account
the full context of a tenant situation rather than relying
on single points of data or you know, criteria that
really flattens the ability to gain more context or more
information about an applicant. Some policies we see also prohibit
(10:12):
blanket ban evictions or prohibit blanket bands based on someone's
credit score or criminal record or rental history alone. So
essentially that means that for these protections, landlords can't have
policies that says, hey, one strike, you're out. One eviction
record or one criminal record, you're out, We're not even
(10:35):
going to consider you, or if you have a particular
type of score, we're not even going to consider your application. Right,
so it creates more holistic screening criteria, and then others
limit how far back again a screening can look into
a person's background, or restrict what consumer reporting agencies can
include in their reports. And we are seeing some progress. So,
(10:57):
between twenty twenty and twenty twenty two, twelve jurisdictions enacted
tenant screening protections and since twenty twenty three, seven more
have followed suit, and currently over ten additional jurisdictions have
active or recent campaigns pushing for these reforms, and so
the momentum is really clear. Tenants are pushing back, advocates
(11:18):
are pushing back against the systems that entrench housing inequities,
and really are demanding fairer and more just approaches to
housing access.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
Probably the most important point of all of this is
that states and counties and cities don't have to wait
on the federal government right like, they can get started
on doing things. Now, what are some examples. I mean,
you mentioned that there were twelve jurisdictions that had advanced
protections even recently, what are some good examples where people
can look for for inspiration to know what is possible.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yeah, so we've seen some bills get recently introduced in
Hawaii at the state level around the viction pursuing. California
has a strong law that's been in place for quite
a while and so it has some evidence backed. Uh,
it's an evidence backed protection to see how many people
it's been impacting. So there are different levels of strength
(12:16):
and different choices that jurisdictions have to make around like
what kind of you know, protection is going to work
for them, What what can they get past, what's going
to be you know, sort of applicable to to their
what their community needs. But when I talked about uniform
screening criteria, there's sort of two ways that it can
be looked at. Uniform screening criteria can either be that
(12:37):
like the screening criteria that a landlord has to consider
is proscribed through the law, and so the law says specifically,
here's what can be considered and the criteria outside of
what is listed here or named here can't be considered.
And then how it's used in the Philadelphia Renter's Access Act,
which is a tenet screening protection law. Uniform screening criteria means,
(13:00):
for the purposes of that law, that every applicant has
to get the same set of criteria. So it doesn't
say what that criteria has to be. It does have
some baselines around, like you can't consider certain types of
eviction records, et cetera, but it doesn't otherwise proscribe what
the screening criteria is. It just says that each person
has to get the same set of criteria. So you
(13:23):
can't have a set of criteria for one applicant that
is different for the next applicant. So that's what uniform
screening criteria means in that context, and it's meant as
a fair housing protection to ensure that, you know, black
women and families with children aren't getting a different set
of criteria than another applicant is getting. You can get innovative,
(13:46):
you can pair different types of things depending on what
the needs of that community is. And for Philadelphia, you know,
as we were working at the state level to try
to get in aviction record silling policy passed, we were
working at the local level to ensure that eviction records
had less of an impact on people's ability to access housing.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
After the break. Marie Claire traned Ung from the National
Housing Law Project explains how local leaders can use recent
federal guidance to take action even without strong support from Washington.
Welcome Back. Earlier, Rashida Phillips from Policy Link laid out
(14:29):
both the problem and a solution, how flawed screening tools
unfairly shut people out of housing, especially black and LATINX women,
and how stronger tenant screening protections can help ensure that
past hardships don't dictate someone's future. The good news is
HUD issued guidance that making decisions based on eviction or
criminal records can raise serious fair housing concerns. Now, Marie
(14:51):
Claire tran Ung from the National Housing Law Project explains
how to build on that momentum, especially when the Federal
Department of Housing and Urban Development that acted now have
is not the same ally they once had last year.
Speaker 5 (15:07):
Now, of course, since the beginning of the current administration,
we've seen a number of attacks both on HUT generally
and on principles of fair housing, and so some of
you may be wondering, well, how useful is this guidance today?
We may not know exactly what the fate of the
(15:28):
guidance is in the long term. But what we know
is that had had given a really important tool right
now of how these practices can violate the Fair Housing Act.
And although it's really important for HUD to say these things,
what is really important is the underlying legal analysis, because
(15:51):
the fact remains is that there's a lot of case
law that has been evolving for decades that show that
tenants reading practices have a disparate impact on many protected classes,
communities of color, people with disabilities, older adults, and families
(16:12):
with children, among others. And I think what the HUT
guidance provides is a really useful blueprint on the legal
justifications for taking more actions. The other really important guidance
that has come out of the federal agencies within the
last few years is from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
(16:34):
So here the CFPB has provided really two types of
documents that are really helpful in the tenants screening context.
One is reports, so really delving into the research on
the tenant screening industry and their practices. For a long time,
this was really considered the wild wild West, where there
(16:54):
were so many industry players and really not a lot
of sense of what their practices were and how pervasive
they were. And so the CFPB in recent years has
really taken a lot of information such as consumer complaints reports,
data from their enforcement actions to put together two really
(17:15):
important documents that can give state and localities a good
sense of the scope of the problem and how it
may show up in their communities. The other thing that
the CFPB has done is written advisory opinions under a
variety of laws that again provide really important legal analysis
on the ways that the practices from tenant screening companies
(17:38):
and landlords could violate federal laws like the Federal Fare
Credit Reporting Act, which provides a lot of procedural protections
for attendance in the screening process. And so again, like
the HUT guidance, the information itself, it's unclear whether it'll
continue under the federal government, but the underlying legal analysis
(18:01):
still is good because the statutes and the laws that
it relies upon have not changed and can really provide
an important du print for states and localities to make
the changes that they need to.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
So change is still possible. All the work that was
done is not lost. It isn't a race just because
there's a new administration. In fact, Perclayer encourages local leaders
who step into their own power.
Speaker 5 (18:31):
In the absence of federal leadership in the tenant screening space,
States and localities can really seize this moment to protect renters.
And the role of states and localities I think are threefold.
One is that states and localities have the ability to
experiment with innovative solutions, and so there's potential here to
(18:55):
really tinker and think through the ways that you all
can help community members and renters who are experiencing problems
with the tenet screening process in your areas as this happens.
I think there's also a really important ability for states
and localities to lift up the experiences that their community
(19:16):
members are experiencing nationally to help us build out the
scope of what is happening to renters in the ten
screening process. And lastly, the work of states and localities
in this area helped pave the way for progress at
the federal level in the future. So a lot of
(19:36):
the work that I've done has been at the intersection
of housing and criminal records, and back in twenty sixteen
had released a guidance that was really focused on criminal
records specifically, during the first Trump administration, there was less
movement on that area at the federal level, but during
the Trump administration, we saw a lot of really innovative
(20:00):
and groundbreaking work from localities such as Seattle and Cook
County and other places that really created local policies that
really helped renters with records on the ground, and during
those four years. That then led to work with in
(20:24):
hud at the during under the Biden administration to propose
rules that took some of the learnings that happened from
the states and localities. And although we did not necessarily
get a rule around criminal records during the last administration,
that just kind of still can continue to build the
momentum of things of progress in the times screaming space.
(20:48):
So I think, you know, knowing this, the states and
localities were really looking for leadership in this area. Sometimes
we tend to think of places in terms of blue
states and bread states, but really there are so many
opportunities for different jurisdictions to be able to change policies
that can help open the tend screening process for renters
(21:11):
and contribute to people being stably housed. So one is
maybe not so much legal, but really an important component
of this work is the ability to identify the scope
of the problem. And so right now the Tennis screening
process is very much of block box. People might pay
application fees, they might submit a lot of applications, but
(21:33):
people don't actually a lot of times know what type
of criteria spring them out of the process. And so
states and localities have a really important role to try
to identify the scope of the problem. So what could
that look like. That could look like something as simple
as collecting complaints from community members and trying to understand
what is actually happening, what are the emerging trends that
(21:55):
are happening. And I think especially with local government, your
constituents are really looking to you to try to help
them solve their problems and define what the scope of
the problem is. The other really important tool that we've
seen is fair housing testing. That can come from fair
housing organizations, but it can also come from enforcement agencies
(22:17):
within local and state governments like the AG's office, the
local Human Rights Commission, and that has provided a lot
of really helpful information to use in enforcement actions. And
then there's reports, so really getting a sense similar to
what the CFPB did, getting a sense of what is
the scope of the problem in your jurisdiction and bringing
(22:38):
together community members to figure out ways to solve it.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
The bottom line is MarieClaire still sees room to make progress.
Maybe for some states that includes new legislation New Jerseys
Fair Chance Hasing Act as an example, where tenants are
protected against the use of criminal records and screening. But
even if changing your state's law seems out of reach,
Mariclare says, a lot exists within the sphere of influence
for any city.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
But the reality is in a lot of places, legislative
solutions may not be immediately available, and so the other
option or supplement is to think about administrative advocacy. So
what are the ways that you can focus on agencies
at the local level or at the state level to
(23:26):
try to change policies for people in the tenant screening process.
So one is looking at fair housing enforcement. So in California,
which is where I am at, the state has its
own Fair State for Housing regulations that were amended a
number of years ago to govern the tenant screening process
(23:49):
and particularly the use of criminal records in ten and screening.
And that was a really powerful supplement to what was
happening at the federal level. Your state or local fair
housing agency may also have the ability to provide guidance
documents that may be similar to what had provided in
the tenant screening space, and that could provide a lot
(24:10):
of useful guidance to landlords and tenants screening companies within
their jurisdiction. And then the last area to look at
is really enforcement action. So how can state ags play
a role? How can state human rights missions play a
role in making sure that landlords and tennant screening companies
aren't violating the Fairhousing Act or other fair housing protections
(24:35):
in the way they screen tenants. And then the other
big area, So you have fair housing which governs all
types of housing, and then there's the subsidized housing programs,
and I think that's another really important area where states
and localities can think about tenant screening protections. So at
the state level, there are some states that have their
(24:56):
own state subsidized housing programs. That is a a very
useful area to try to impose ten screening protections. The
other place, the other really important place at the state
level is the Low income Housing tax credit program, which
is the largest source of financing for affordable housing right
now nationally, and there's an ability to shift how qualified
(25:22):
allocation plans consider or incorporate admissions policies in the distribution
of those credits. And locally, there's a lot of room
for advocates to work at the public housing space, the
housing Choice voucher space, and also the project based Section
eight space. Each of those has their own admissions policies
(25:44):
where advocates can really make a huge difference in adding
more structure and protections in the ten screening space that
would help a lot of people, especially those who are
in most need this type of housing in this market.
And so if you take one thing away from this,
I think there is a moment right now for state
(26:07):
and localities to take leadership in this area. We have
really wonderful tools, really powerful tools that came from the
federal government that state localities can now use to really
create really necessary and important protections for people so that
the Tennis screening process is fair for everyone.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
Every clear you had mentioned the new Jersey Fair Chance
and Housing Act. Are there any local solutions you want
to raise up as examples that maybe could inspire people.
Speaker 5 (26:36):
You know, one of the areas that I, like I mentioned,
have focused on is on criminal records, and so we
worked on legislation at Incook County that would limit the
use of criminal history records in tenant screening. And I
think that was really useful because one of the goals
(26:58):
of the county that was looking at that was was
to really take a look at what HUD had put
forth in its guidance around criminal records and use that
as a basis for making changes to the human rights
ordinance in Cook County. And I put that out there
(27:19):
as an example because again, the tenant screening guidance that
had released last year may not be something that had
prioritizes in the next four years, but the underlying legal
analysis is very very strong and offers a lot of
useful both useful legal tips but also useful overview of
(27:41):
what the issues how they play out, both for landlords
and tenant screening companies. And so I think the fact
that Cook County kind of modeled in some ways its
ordinance after what had had put forth in that guidance
could be really a useful jumping off point for states
in law localities who want to take what had put
(28:04):
forth in the tennis screening guidance that they released last
year and build upon that in their own legislation.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Are you ready to do something about all this? After
the break? Britney Drew Lane from Results for America shares
how local leaders can get support through a free solution
sprint happening this summer. Welcome back. We've heard how tenant
screening tools, often relying on inaccurate or outdated data, can
(28:35):
shut people out of housing for years. And we've heard
why local action is still possible and so important even
as federal progress remains uncertain. Now, Britney Drew Lane from
Results for America shares a free opportunity for local leaders
to take action through one of their solutions sprints, happening
this summer. Here's Britney.
Speaker 6 (28:57):
Results for America as a nonprofit organization that helps government
leaders harness the power of evidence and data to fund
solutions that work to accelerate economic mobility and improve lives.
And today we're joined by two of our five implementing partners,
who together are supporting communities across the country to advance
fair tenant screening practices and eliminate eviction based barriers to housing.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
One type of program they run at Results for America
are free virtual programs called Solution Sprints, cohort based learning
models designed to help local governments quickly adopt evidence based
policies that improve residence economic mobility.
Speaker 6 (29:38):
Since twenty twenty, the Solutions Accelerator Team at URFA has
run eleven Solution Sprints, supporting over one thousand local and
state decision makers and over one hundred and fifty jurisdictions
to implement evidence based economic mobility solutions through the Solution
Sprint programming. So in the Solution Sprints selection, selected teams
(29:58):
will receive expert guidance on how to design and implement
policies that prevent the harms of eviction records and tenant
screening practices and expand access to affordable housing. So teams
will have space to network and learn alongside and from
other jurisdictions and can, through the sprint, build a coalition
or strengthen coalitions of diverse organizations and sectors that are
(30:22):
working to fight against unfairn discriminatory practices. The sprint itself
consists of eight ninety minute long weekly virtual sessions that
will take place from July ninth to August twenty seventh,
and participants can expect to gain through the Sprint knowledge
on how to design and advocate for and implement policies
(30:43):
that prevent harmful tenant screening practices, can receive one on
one coaching sessions, and have the possibility to access grant funding.
The grant funding is around five to twenty thousand dollars
and it'll be used to support the work of one
or more of the teams that participate in the Sprint
(31:03):
to accelerate their implementation of these practices and programs.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
This might be a question for you, Marie Claire, which
is I believe people who join the Sprint are going
to get strategies to counter the opposition to all of this, right,
So I wonder what's an example of something that you
might typically hear from the opposition and how it could
be counter So.
Speaker 5 (31:27):
I think one argument that we often hear sometimes from
the opposition is that increasing protections in the tenants reading
space may result in less affordable housing being available to tenants.
And I think we've seen that happen in many many
(31:49):
campaigns and being able to sort of bring forth evidence
that that is really oftentimes like a red herring in
this space that communications and narrative tools to help nullify
some of those arguments I think are really important. The
other thing that I think we have seen is that,
(32:12):
you know, maybe industry groups may try to speak on
behalf of landlords as a whole, but at least in
Cook County, one of the things that we was really
important for us was to be able to make relationships
with some of the other landlord groups that may not
have felt like the broader industry groups were representing their interests.
(32:35):
That could be affinity groups, that could be smaller landlord groups,
and so really trying to think through what is the landscape,
the advocacy landscape within a given jurisdiction, and how do
you create a really broad coalition that understands the need
to protect renters and the community wide approaches that can
(32:58):
make that happen.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
If someone's listening and they're interested in this, and they're like, well,
where should I spend my time? Should I be working
on right to counsel or should I be working on
tenants screening or the many other ones? How do you
answer that for them?
Speaker 5 (33:21):
So I guess one thing I'll say is that the
kind of the beauty of this solutions sprint and the
ability to bring together different cohorts from different jurisdictions is
that everyone's going to have probably one slice of this
problem that they're going to prioritize right now. But the
way to make sustainable change is to understand that there's
(33:45):
probably a long term strategy around helping tenants and that
there's different different different interventions that can take place, and
you may your your team may prioritize one for this
particular solutions sprint, but that a plan of a more
comprehensive tenant protection interventions is really going to help to
(34:09):
make things sustainable in the long run. And being able
to see how that's playing out in other jurisdictions while
you're looking at your own, I think is a really
powerful plus of being part of this. So there's definitely
a different interventions at play, but you can sort of
talk with others and learn from others in this space.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
You don't have to do it alone, don't have to
do it all by yourself. Build on that a little bit.
I know you will say it's important to include tenant
voices in the organizing to achieve all these policy changes,
and you, for example, call for like coalitions that are
tenant led so why do you recommend that, Rashida, and
what does that typically look like or ideally look like.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Yeah, definitely for the sprint opportunity, we want the teams
to be as diverse as possible and to have you know,
the necessary stakeholders, tenants being one of them, because they
are the people actually impacted by these eviction records and
screening policies as I talked about, and so really have
(35:13):
a lot of the insight that's needed in terms of
how a policy should be shaped to support them being
able to access housing right, which is the point of
uh these protections. And we've seen in a lot of
places that successful campaigns have emerged from from the ground,
from from tenants themselves. I can speak to this for
(35:34):
particularly for Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Renters Access Act was
very much a tenant led campaign, right it was. It
was led by folks who had actual eviction records that
came about through no fault of their own. They were
mass evicted from housing before their leases had ended and
filed against in eviction court. And so folks years later
(35:56):
were still carrying those eviction records and said, hey, we
need a change here. I'm still not able to access
housing right and so really led the movement in Philadelphia
to get the Renter's Access Act passed. And so that
is why it's important to have those voices represented. And
you know, for the reasons that we don't want to
shape protections that actually are not going to impact the
(36:16):
people who need them. So that would be my plug
for making sure that if you're applying that you try
to have a tenant representation on your team. But I'll
kick it to Brittany in case there's more to add
about what that should look like.
Speaker 6 (36:31):
I really appreciate that, Rashida, and I think we've seen
in other you know, housing accessibility and working on housing
stability how important it is to have tenant leadership. So
we also have a solution sprint upcoming on tenant Right
to Counsel, and it's just really incredibly important to have
that being led by folks who are tenant organizers and
(36:55):
impacted by the challenge and the problem that the solution
is attempting to address. And so we do have more
information specifically about how a team can look you know,
either required team members or recommended team members. And we
also encourage you to Marie Claire's point to think about innovation,
So please do come with us if you think that
(37:17):
there should be additional team members that are really important
to ensuring the advancement of this work within the jurisdiction
or community that you're trying to see this happen in.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
To apply for one of the Solutions Sprints, visit results
for America dot org. That's Results the number four America
dot org and search for the Solution Sprints Calendar. Applications
are accepted on a rolling basis and will close between
three and five weeks before each sprint starts. For this
sprint on tenant protections, they extended the application deadline and
you've gotten until June thirteenth, at midnight Pacific to apply.
(38:07):
We hope you enjoyed this sponsored episode of Next City,
a show about change makers and their stories. Together we
can spread good ideas from one city to the next city.
Thank you for listening this week. Thank you to our
guests Rashida Phillips, director of Housing at PolicyLink, Marie Claire Trandwong,
Eviction's Initiative Project Director at the National Housing Law Project,
and Brittany drew Lane, director of the Solutions Accelerator at
(38:28):
Results for America. This sponsored episode was produced in partnership
with Results for America. You can watch the full webinar
by visiting nextcity dot org slash webinars. Our audio producer
is Slavana Alcala, Our show producer is Maggie Bowles, our
executive producer is Ryan Tillotson, and I'm Lucas Gridley, executive
director for Next City. We'd love to hear any feedback
from our listeners. Please feel free to email us at
(38:48):
info atnexcity dot org and if you haven't already, subscribed
to the show on Apple, Spotify, good Pods, or anywhere
you listen to your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
St
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