Curley: Incentivize landlords to rent to tenants with criminal backgrounds

A group of Seattle organizations are looking for support to enact legislation banning landlords from automatically rejecting prospective tenants with criminal records. KIRO Radio’s John Curley believes that rather than forcing landlords to do anything, why not entice them with incentives instead.

The Seattle Times reports that the Columbia Legal Services is leading a group of Seattle organizations launching a campaign Monday night that’s pushing the city to enact new legislation banning landlords from automatically rejecting all prospective tenants with criminal records. The FARE (Fair Access to Renting for Everyone) campaign has some city council backers and plays into Mayor Ed Murray’s expressed interest in reducing barriers to housing for people with criminal records, The Times says.

FARE wants to mirror Seattle’s legislation related to the national “Ban the box” movement that restricts employers from using conviction and arrest records during the hiring process.

Tom Tangney said the idea is that just because someone has a criminal record doesn’t mean a person and his or her family should be disallowed from getting through the initial steps.

“If they can’t get housing they’re sort of doomed for life even though they’ve sort of served their time,” he explained. “They feel like that’s just an undue burden on them if they’ve already served their time.

Curley believes that a landlord should have the right to know who they are renting their property to and that the crystal clean application will most always win out over a criminal background. Unless there’s a good reason to give a criminal a second chance.

John Curley: How about this… If they’ve done their time and they’ve gone through the system they shouldn’t have to carry this around with them. Unfortunately, they do. So if you rent to somebody that’s got a criminal background, the city will give you a couple carrots. They’ll throw a couple bonuses your way, they’ll give you a discount in there &#8212 you won’t have to pay as much in taxes. Some reason for you to take the chance on the individual. If it doesn’t work out, they should also allow you to kick that person out in a timely manner, as opposed to going through the rigorous and arduous task of filing against the person and then having to get the person to come to court and to get the person to show up and then all the additional expenses of trying to throw the person out. And once you’ve thrown them out, then spending the additional $1,500 to have a company come in an clear all the crap out of your apartment and then fix all of the damage that’s been done to your apartment.

Tom Tangney: Wow, this sounds like this happened to you. Do you have a rental unit?

JC: Yeah, and that’s what happens. You put the tenant in but then it takes you like five months for the tenant to be thrown out because all the laws are written in benefit of the tenant, not to the landlord, because the landlord is not sitting there going to these city council meetings and protesting. It’s the tenant in there, Tom. Try to get somebody out of your apartment &#8212 good luck. And then the damage they do is unbelievable. They basically steal from you for months on end and the government protects them.

TT: I think it’s good we get a landlord’s perspective, we also understand how tough it is to be a tenant.

JC: No, it’s not tough to be a tenant. Go to work, (get paid) and then pay me.

TT: Well, try that with a criminal record. So you’ve had issues with people that have no criminal record, I trust, because you had the right to reject them?

JC: Nobody applied who had a criminal record, but again, if you gave me an incentive and said, tell you what, if you rent them we’ll kick in 100 bucks or something to give him a second chance, to give that guy a rental history. And then all of a sudden you see, ‘Yes, I checked the box, but I rented at this guy’s apartment for seven years and you never had a problem with me.’ Then all of a sudden it pushes the negative, your past stuff becomes further away and your future indicator of how you will perform is more relevant.

TT: So we would use your taxes to help benefit you by enticing you to allow a tenant with a criminal record to move into your place but then we will use that tax money to help you get rid of him if he turns out to be a bad renter.