Major apartment landlord raises issues with Ann Arbor’s new fair housing ordinance
ANN ARBOR, MI — Ann Arbor is close to adopting a new fair housing ordinance to keep landlords from turning away renters with criminal backgrounds.
But based on issues raised by McKinley Inc., a major apartment landlord in the area, officials say the city needs to carve out exceptions for private landlords who are federally required in some cases to take a person’s criminal history into account.
The city’s Human Rights Commission discussed the issue this week, indicating it’s complicated and pending revisions are going to hold up City Council’s final adoption of the new Fair Chance Access to Housing ordinance next week.
“There’s a fix that needs to be made, a change, because surprisingly it does contradict a law,” Commission Chair Leslie Stambaugh said.
McKinley CEO Albert Berriz said he believes it’s important for people with criminal records to have access to housing.
“Opportunity is key,” he said.
But it needs to be done in a way that’s consistent with federal law, he said.
“We want to comply with the federal law. That’s all it is,” he said of the issues McKinley raised.
The proposed ordinance, unanimously approved by City Council at first reading March 1, would make it illegal for landlords to inquire in any way about an applicant’s criminal history or require disclosure of criminal history, or to deny someone housing if such information is received.
Public housing agencies like the Ann Arbor Housing Commission that are federally required to run criminal background checks and turn away certain people would be exempt, as would nonprofit agencies like Avalon Housing, which provide publicly subsidized housing and take tenants’ criminal history into account in tailoring services to support them.
Now, officials say they may have to add exceptions for other private landlords who receive federal funding or accept tenants with federally subsidized housing vouchers, because they also are federally required to consider an applicant’s criminal history and turn away certain people.
Under federal law, there are three categories of people not eligible for federally subsidized housing: people convicted of producing meth in federally funded housing, people on the lifetime sex offender list, and people using illegal drugs.
There’s some discretion on that last one, said Jennifer Hall, Housing Commission executive director.
“We say, well, if you have a family member who is actively using or convicted of a drug offense but they’ve gone through a rehab, for example, and now they’re clean, that would allow us to bypass that restriction,” she said.
Public housing providers also have discretion under federal law to deny applicants for a variety of other criminal convictions, including past drug offenses and violent crimes.
“As public entities, I feel like we should be screening tenants in, not screening tenants out like the private sector does,” Hall said. “So, we try to screen tenants in, but a lot of housing commissions actually have similar types of screening-out criteria that the private sector does.”
The federal rules apply to both public housing providers and private landlords who receive federal funding or accept tenants with federally subsidized housing vouchers, Hall said, adding the city is now trying to account for that in the ordinance.
When someone goes through the Housing Commission’s qualification process to get a housing voucher to use for rent subsidy in the private sector, a criminal background check is done, Human Rights Commissioner Linda Winkler said.
“Well, it turns out that there are two other provisions in federal law that actually require landlords who are accepting those vouchers to do the same background checks all over again, even though it’s already been done,” Winkler said.
“So, that opens up a giant loophole, because what it means effectively is that landlords can do background checks on every applicant, because you don’t know if somebody is going to be using a voucher necessarily when they apply for your housing.”
The city attorney’s office, Housing Commission and Human Rights Commission are sorting out the issue, she said.
“I think we’ve figured out a way to sort of carve out another exception that will allow these landlords to do the background checks required under federal law, but they’d have to make a conditional offer first to the person,” she said.
If a criminal background check then turns up any of the three reasons in federal law to deny housing, the applicant would have an opportunity to challenge the accuracy of the information, Winkler said.
“And then if it’s right, then OK, the person wouldn’t get housing. But theoretically, that should never happen because … the screening has already been done,” she said.
What officials want to avoid is landlords doing a criminal background check and getting information they’re technically not supposed to use, Winkler said.
“We’re worried then that it’s going to bias their opinion about a person and we’re back to where we started, and then they’ll give the apartment to someone else,” she said. “So, we need to sort of constrain how they’re able to do it.”
City Attorney Stephen Postema said his staff is working on revising the ordinance language. It could go to council Monday night, March 15, but it’ll have to go back to first reading again, with final approval coming at a later date.
Ann Arbor already has a non-discrimination ordinance that prohibits discrimination based on someone’s arrest record, race, sexual orientation and many other factors.
The Fair Chance Access to Housing ordinance would add a new chapter to the city code.
Source: mlive.com
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