BY ELAINE GOODMAN
Daily Post Correspondent
Palo Alto landlords wouldn’t be able to use criminal convictions more than two years old in deciding whether to rent to a potential tenant, under a proposed ordinance City Council will consider tonight (April 14).
The proposal, called the Fair Chance in Housing ordinance, would still allow landlords to use a state database to weed out sex offenders. But for other crimes, including robberies, assaults, and murders, a landlord could only look at convictions where the person was sentenced within the past two years. However, council could opt to lengthen that “look-back” period.
The point of the ordinance is to help es used for renter screening often include inaccurate or incomplete information,” the report said.
If the applicant felt they were unfairly rejected, they could take the landlord to court. The city doesn’t plan to be involved in enforcing the ordinance.
Under state rules, landlords are encouraged to screen tenants using some of the same steps outlined in the Palo Alto ordinance, but the steps are voluntary rather than required. The city acknowledged its proposed ordinance could increase the time it takes to rent out a unit for landlords who aren’t now following similar procedures. And “public perceptions of safety may shift, even in the absence of data to support these concerns,” the city’s report said.
Anil Babbar of the California Apartment Association said the city would be better off educating the public about existing state law on criminal background checks of potential tenants, rather than creating confusion by adopting its own rules.
“We do not need to go any further in adopting this patchwork of unnecessary and duplicative ordinances,” Babbar said during a meeting of the city’s Human Relations Commission in October, where the possibility of a Fair Chance ordinance was discussed.
The state rules give a would-be tenant another option besides suing a landlord for not following the law, Babbar said. They can file a complaint with the state Civil Rights Department, which can investigate the claim and take legal action in situations when the tenant can’t afford to do so. That’s not an option for violations of a city ordinance, he said.
CAA told the city that some Palo Alto landlords don’t run criminal background checks on potential ten-ants, while others run a background check for the past three to five years and some look back even further.
Some landlords believe the background checks help them reduce turnover at their properties that might occur if residents felt uncomfortable with a new neighbor with a criminal past, CAA told the city.
As now proposed, the Palo Alto ordinance wouldn’t apply to duplexes, triplexes or single-family homes with or without an accessory or “granny” unit – as long as the owner lives in one of the units.
Situations in which a tenant gets a new roommate also wouldn’t be covered by the ordinance.
If the city wanted to give renters even more protection from criminal background screenings, it could ban the practice altogether. But the report to council notes that the city of Seattle was sued when it tried that.
The case, Yim v. City of Seattle, ended up at the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which ruled that the Seattle ordinance was an unconstitutional restric- tion of landlords’ right to free speech under the First Amendment.
This proposed law is “Exhibit A” in explaining why Palo Alto has so many vacant homes, and why a property owner would choose to forego rental income instead of making their property available for rent. What sane person wouldn’t be delighted to rent their home to an a member of a group who has been convicted of preying on society, and who has demonstrated such sound judgment and impulse control? Who wouldn’t look forward to confronting such a person about their late rent, and the noise complaints from the neighbors? A landlord can always count on a fair deal from city government.
Hello, more ghost houses! What a terrible idea.