Doctoral Dissertation Research: Tenant Screening in the Information Age: Implications for Housing Access

华盛顿大学的katherine BeckettAnna reostis这个项目调查了现代背景筛选程序对西雅图大都市区租赁住房准入和歧视的影响。近年来，公平住房倡导者对私人租赁住房市场转向更多信息密集型筛选做法的潜在歧视影响表示担忧，这种做法利用商业背景搜索工具来审查申请人的犯罪、信用和驱逐历史。为了回应这些担忧，美国一些司法管辖区的政策制定者最近呼吁规范背景调查信息在评估租房申请人时的使用方式，特别是在犯罪记录方面。与就业领域相反，迄今为止，很少有学者调查租赁住房中的现代背景筛选程序是否以及如何为歧视提供了新的机会，或者探索当地的相关行为者（如房东和租户）如何理解这些问题。为了弥补这些差距，本论文项目从租赁住房提供者和最近申请住房的租房者的双重视角调查租户筛选实践。对过去6个月内搬家的租房者的访谈将发现未被充分研究的住房获取障碍，特别是对于具有不良背景特征的租房者，如犯罪历史、过去的驱逐和/或信用受损。这些知识可能有助于公平和负担得起的住房倡导者和社会工作者努力改善租赁住房的获取。与此同时，对一组房东的采访将阐明是什么激励了这些受访者？筛选申请人的方法和帮助引起人们对制度动态的关注，这些动态可能会阻碍法律改革努力，通过规范背景筛选做法来促进住房公平（例如，由于担心经济责任，房东不愿将房屋租给有犯罪记录的申请人）。这些面试将在住房和城市发展部（HUD）最近发布的法律指导意见之后进行，该指导意见指示私人租赁住房供应商，明确排除有犯罪记录的申请人的政策可能违反《公平住房法》，并且在一个正在进行“禁止盒子”运动或规范住房犯罪历史筛选的大都市地区进行。因此，这项研究应该及时为正在进行的政策做出贡献，这些政策正在讨论如何确保租户筛选程序不会不必要地危及公平和平等地获得租赁住房。这项研究还将为多个学术机构做出重要贡献，包括关于犯罪记录附带后果的社会学文献，以及关于反歧视法的社会法律工作。

SES-1636961Katherine BeckettAnna ReostiUniversity of WashingtonThis project investigates the implications of modern background screening procedures for rental housing access and discrimination in the Seattle metropolitan area. In recent years fair housing advocates have raised concerns regarding the potential discriminatory impacts of the shift toward more information-intense screening practices in the private rental housing market, which utilize commercial background search tools to examine applicants' criminal, credit and eviction histories. In response to such concerns, policymakers in some U.S. jurisdictions have recently made calls to regulate how background check information is used to evaluate rental applicants, particularly with respect to criminal records. In contrast to the employment sphere, few scholars to date have investigated whether and how modern background screening procedures in rental housing provide new opportunities for discrimination, or explored how relevant actors on the ground, such as landlords and tenants, understand such issues. In an effort to remedy those gaps, this dissertation project investigate tenant screening practices from the dual perspectives of rental housing providers and renters who have recently applied for housing. Interviews with renters who have moved within the last six months will identify understudied impediments to housing access, particularly for renters with discrediting background characteristics such as criminal histories, past evictions and/or damaged credit. That knowledge may help fair and affordable housing advocates and social workers in their efforts to improve rental housing access. Interviews with a group of landlords meanwhile will illuminate what motivates those respondents? approaches to screening applicants and help call attention to institutional dynamics that could frustrate legal reform efforts to advance equity in housing access by regulating background screening practices (e.g. fears of financial liability that discourage landlords from renting to applicants with criminal records). These interviews will be conducted in the wake of the recent release of legal guidance from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) instructing private rental housing providers that policies which categorically exclude applicants with criminal records could run afoul of the Fair Housing Act, and in a metropolitan area where a campaign to "Ban-the-Box", or regulate criminal history screening in housing, is currently underway. As such this research should make a timely contribution to ongoing policy ongoing discussions around how to ensure that tenant screening procedures do not unnecessarily jeopardize fair and equal access to rental housing. This study is also poised to make important contributions to multiple bodies of academic scholarship, including the sociological literatures on the collateral consequences of a criminal record, and socio-legal work on anti-discrimination law in action.