Oakland, California, Bans Criminal Background Checks on Renters

[rangerrebew]

Oakland, California, Bans Criminal Background Checks on Renters
Proponents of the move hope it will help secure equal opportunity for the formerly incarcerated.
By Trevor Bach, Contributor Feb. 18, 2020, at 8:00 a.m.
 
U.S. News & World Report
 

California's affordable housing nightmare is well known: More than 40% of residents are now classified as housing cost-burdened, the highest proportion of any state. In many cities in the San Francisco Bay Area, the nation's tightest housing market, the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment now exceeds $2,500, a figure that contributes to a growing homelessness problem, exacerbates gentrification and pinches ostensibly middle-class professionals like teachers and police officers as well as those even higher up the income ladder.
 

For one demographic the crisis is amplified. "I was born and raised in Oakland," Lee "Taqwaa" Bonner, a former felon turned advocate, said at a recent news conference. "I am employed in Oakland. … However, I cannot live in Oakland based solely on my criminal record, which happened 30 years ago." Excluded from the rental market, Bonner has often resorted to living in his car. Others have fared worse, spiraling into permanent homelessness, drug addiction and even death.

https://www.usnews.com/news/cities/articles/2020-02-18/to-aid-ex-convicts-oakland-california-bans-criminal-background-checks-on-renters

[rangerrebew]

I guess the ban would help terrorists get housing, too.

[EdinVA]

So, federal law says you have no choice but to rent to who ever shows up with a check and now you cannot even run a background check on them?
I look for a shortage of rental property soon...

[PeteS in CA]

On Feb. 4, Oakland's City Council passed a new ordinance designed as a remedy, prohibiting public and private landlords from inquiring about potential tenants' criminal histories. The new law, called the Oakland Fair Chance Housing Ordinance, is the most expansive of its kind in California and among the first for major American cities. Decades after the start of the "ban the box" movement, which aims to stop employers from discriminating against the formerly incarcerated, proponents hope it will also act as a new catalyst in the battle to secure equal opportunity for the more than 70 million Americans burdened by criminal records.

Federal? I've lived in neighborhoods where owners/manglers rented to whomever. I saw reminders of this weekly or more often in the form of midnights with police cars with lights flashing parked across the street. Banning rational self-protective behavior will get people killed/hurt and shrink the rental housing market (because landlords' insurance rates will go up).