Or maybe in almost any other country in the world, statistically most of the people with criminal histories in the U.S. would never have been arrested or convicted in the first place:
" The United States prison population of 2.2 million adults is by far the largest in the world. As of 2012, the United States accounted for only about five percent of the world’s population, yet almost one quarter of the world’s prisoners were held in American prisons. "
This was taken form the HUD article from Calmloki's prior post link. Bolded text added.
All great political points, but a definite attempt at thread hijacking.
A landlord needs consistent screening criteria, for all applicants, regardless of what protected class, or not, the applicant is in. A landlord cannot be responsible for correcting the wrongs of the political system, or the court system.
Even a perfect screening system will exclude good applicants, and bad applicants will still get in. That is fine.
As a landlord, you need to develop a consistent screening criteria that has a business reason. You cannot exclude Republicans, or Democrats, unless you have a solid business reason. Can you imagine excluding people that voted for Obama? A dirty car is also a bad criteria. Even a past landlord reference is not a good criteria. Not only do some people not have past landlords, the information provided is suspect and not verifiable or correctable. The "gut-feel" screening method is one of the worst.
You can exclude low credit score people, or violent criminals in a multifamily building. Or limit to certain incomes and above. These all all criteria that may affect the rental business directly.
In the end, there will always be a place for everyone. Landlords make mistakes, go broke, and tenants move up in their lives.
