West Hollywood to Explore Imposing Limitations on Tenant Screening Practices
At Monday’s, June 27th West Hollywood City Council meeting, the Council directed City Staff to research tenant screening policies and to propose ways to limit the types of screening tools that owners use to evaluate renters. While no specific proposal was advanced, the objective, should an ordinance ultimately be proposed and adopted, would have potentially severe consequences on the ability of rental housing providers to properly assess prospective applicants.
The Association is strongly opposed to these types of proposals which will do little to address the homelessness crisis. In addition, it will increase the risk of potentially accepting problem renters, and policies like this will likely facilitate exodus of the City’s rental housing providers from the industry and with it essential and scarce affordable housing. Tenant screening tools serve an important function in assisting housing providers to mitigate risk and enable owners to provide a safe environment for all residents in their buildings. Applicant fraud has been a growing trend that has already made rental housing providers more susceptible to fraud, placing any kind of restrictions on current screening practices will likely result in even greater concerns and vulnerability.
During the meeting, Mayor Meister, directed City Staff to engage with the Association as part of their exploration of this matter. We will strongly advocate for our members interests and provide updates as this issue evolves.