oWith the heat of the housing market continuing to climb across the United States, evictions continue to be a challenge for low-to-middle income individuals and families. Adam Almeida, President and CEO of TenantScreeningUSA.com opines: “Evictions are and will be an increasing challenge to the rental market across the country and pose a considerable challenge to landlords and property managers, suggesting an urgent and immediate need to work with third-party tenant screening companies.”
Housing evictions continue to increase across the country as the housing market remains hot in key markets and creates significant challenges for existing renters versus the potential of new, higher paying tenants. Adam Almeida, President and CEO of TenantScreeningUSA.com offers the opinion that: “As the housing market remains hot and demand high, evictions will continue to rise and cause considerable impact on the rental market, indicating that landlords and property managers immediately work with a third-party tenant screening company in order to stay fully compliant with existing and new law governing eviction.”
Across the United States evictions have increased in frequency and have become relatively commonplace in hot housing markets, such as New York City and Milwaukee.
On a recent NPR radio broadcast Harvard Professor Mathew Desmond stated:
“There are 40 evictions a day that happen in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and 60 marshal evictions a day in New York City. The last time we rolled out the American Housing Survey, we asked renters: ‘do you think you’ll be evicted soon?’ and 2.8 million renting homes said ‘yes’ to that question. It looks like we’ve moved from a place where eviction used to be pretty rare in our cities to a place to where we’re evicting people not in the tens and hundreds of thousands, but rather millions.” (npr.org; Apr. 03, 17) (1)
Once the eviction process is started it creates a record that often shows up in an eviction report, a document commonly used by landlords and property managers to access the viability of a potential renter.
Almeida states: “Evictions become part of the permanent record, a record landlords need to vet very carefully. In some instances an eviction will be posted to the public record before the case reaches verdict. If a candidate has an eviction court appearance in place, without a verdict, that individual seeking new housing could be negatively affected.”
In the United States it is the opinion of some that eviction is a causal factor to poverty.
Professor Mathew Desmond stated in a recent NPR interview:
“Eviction is not just a condition of poverty: it is a cause of it,” Desmond said. “It makes people’s lives worse. Eviction comes with a mark or a blemish. If it is processed in the court system, landlords will push you away.” (npr.org; Apr. 03, 17) (2)
It should be noted that evictions disproportionately affect African-American women.
From a recent ACLU report on March 30, 2017 via ACLU.org:
Across the country, landlords routinely use screening policies that deny housing whenever an applicant was named in an eviction case — even when a court never ordered the eviction. These unfair policies punish families based on a prior landlord’s decision to file a case, ignoring the reasons for filing, the outcome of the case, or the family’s circumstances. Applicants are often asked whether they were ever involved in an eviction case, and tenant screening companies provide court data to landlords, creating tenant blacklists. Even if the eviction case was dismissed, filed many years ago, or based on unlawful reasons, people’s housing options disappear. (3)
Almeida opines: “There is growing evidence that evictions may be creating disparate impact on protected classes. As the background screening industry witnessed with the EEOC actions against disparate impact in the workplace similar actions may occur via HUD. Whether it occurs under current administration or the next, evictions will continue to increase and affect tenant screening. It is compelling enough to push landlords and property managers to work with third-party tenant screening companies in order to stay current with existing law as well as ahead of potential change.”
TenantScreeningUSA.com is a third-party tenant screening company specializing in tenant background checks for small to mid-size properties. With a highly trained staff, TenantScreeningUSA.com can remain focused on full compliancy with existing law as well as remaining involved with new or pending legislation.
Notes:
(1) news.stlpublicradio.org/post/evictions-are-no-longer-rarity-united-states-how-are-they-work-st-louis#stream/0
(2) ibid.
(3) aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/unfair-eviction-screening-policies-are-disproportionately-blacklisting-black-women
