August 2002 Owners Update

Owner Update “Question Of The Month”

What is TMHA's policy on screening tenants?

Our policy is that we DON‚T screen families for tenancy. We DO screen them for program eligibility. In other words, they may be acceptable for our program, but not suitable as a tenant. In order to know, you need to screen TMHA prospective tenants in the same way you would screen other tenants. In fact, TMHA WANTS YOU TO SCREEN PROGRAM TENANTS. IT‚S YOUR RIGHT!

As an owner or manager, you establish application procedures to consider prospective tenants. These procedures should be applied in the same way for all tenants, whether assisted by TMHA or not. Landlords may screen potential tenants on the basis of their rental background, and may legally check:

past payment of rent and utility bills,
past damage done to rental units,
history of noise and neighborhood disruption,
drug-related and other criminal activity (note: TMHA does screen for
felony drug-related, violent criminal, sex offender convictions, but you may have a
more stringent policy),
history of prior evictions.

While these procedures are legal, it's important to apply them universally in order to avoid a charge of discrimination. TMHA can give you some help in doing screenings if you ask for it, as follows:

must give the family‚s current address,
must give the name and address of the family's current and prior landlord,
if we know it,
will give other factual information in the family's file about tenancy
history matters, or about drug trafficking or violent criminal activity by family
members.

In the case of new families coming on to the program, we likely will not have much tenancy history. With program families who are moving, however, we may have more information. After we've approved a family for program eligibility, we issue them a Voucher, which means that we will extend assistance to them when they find a unit. About half of the families never use that Voucher. We know one reason is that they have a bad tenancy history, and can never find an owner who will rent to them even with guaranteed funding. That is as it should be. TMHA's assistance should be extended to families who need the help, AND who will respect the program rules and the unit in which they live.

Free Criminal Background Check Help Available

There is some on-line help for screening potential tenants for a felony criminal record through the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections. This site will give information on people in the prison system now or in the past. Site is www.drc.state.oh.us and use the offender search option under the Select a Destination box.