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

SES-1636961凯瑟琳·贝克特安娜·雷斯蒂华盛顿大学这个项目调查了现代背景筛选程序对西雅图大都市区出租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注重信息的审查做法的潜在歧视性影响表示担忧，这些做法利用商业背景搜索工具来审查申请者的犯罪、信用和驱逐历史。为了回应这种担忧，美国一些司法管辖区的政策制定者最近呼吁规范如何使用背景调查信息来评估租房申请者，特别是在犯罪记录方面。与就业领域形成对比的是，到目前为止，很少有学者调查出租住房的现代背景审查程序是否以及如何提供新的歧视机会，或探讨实地的相关行为者，如房东和租户，如何理解这些问题。为了弥补这些空白，本论文从租赁住房提供者和最近申请住房的租房者的双重视角来研究租户筛选做法。对在过去六个月内搬家的租户的访谈将发现住房准入方面的未被充分研究的障碍，特别是对于具有令人怀疑的背景特征的租户，如犯罪史、过去的驱逐和/或信用受损。这种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得。与此同时，对一群房东的采访将阐明是什么驱使这些受访者？审查申请者的方法，并有助于提请注意体制动态，这些动态可能会阻碍通过规范背景审查做法(例如，担心房东不愿向有犯罪记录的申请者租房的财务责任)来推进住房获取公平的法律改革努力。这些面谈是在住房和城市发展部(HUD)最近发布法律指导意见后进行的，该指导意见指示私人租赁住房提供商，明确排除有犯罪记录的申请者的政策可能与《公平住房法》相抵触，而且在一个大都市地区，目前正在开展一场禁止住房犯罪历史筛查的运动。因此，这项研究应及时有助于正在进行的关于如何确保租户筛选程序不会不必要地危及获得出租住房的公平和平等机会的政策正在进行的讨论。这项研究还将对多个学术机构作出重要贡献，包括关于犯罪记录附带后果的社会学文献，以及关于反歧视法律实际行动的社会法律工作。

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.