Owner Update “Question of The Month”

Q: Do I have to use any special procedures to screen TMHA assisted tenants?

As a landlord, you can select among tenants approved for TMHA assistance in the same way you screen unassisted tenants. The rule of thumb is that your screening procedures must be consistent for all potential tenants, and meet nondiscriminatory fair housing guidelines. Following are some permissible selection criteria which are valid reasons for refusing to rent to someone:

won't provide you with proper identification
won't furnish you with references from previous landlord(s)
fails to complete and sign application and/or lease
falsifies information on application or lease
has many unpaid bills, bad credit, or history of late rent payments
has pets and your written policy prohibits them (except seeing eye dogs)
has a verifiable history of evictions, unit damage or disturbing neighbors
is a minor with no responsible adult to co-sign
a family member has recent history of serious criminal activity
cannot pay a required security deposit

We can be of some help to owners selecting tenants. We will give you the applicant's current address and current landlord, if we know it. According to TMHA policy, we will also disclose other information we may have in the family's file about tenancy history matters, such as evictions, history of unit damage or payment of rent. For new applicants coming on to the program for the first time, we probably wont have much tenancy information, but we probably will have information on those tenants who have been on the program, and are moving with our assistance. We will give program owners the above information in a factual manner upon request.

The bottom line is that we want our program owners to screen tenants. You have a right to select the kind of tenants you want to have so long as you observe fair housing guidelines. We approve tenant families for income eligibility, but not for tenancy. We do check to see if family members have a felony record. We can, and sometimes do, deny assistance to applicants who have had drug-related and/or violent criminal felony convictions.

For information or questions about fair housing practices call Cheryl Staron at Fair Housing Consortia at 1-800-581-3247.

Landlords-Notify TMHA of Your Available Rental Units

Tuscarawas MHA will be glad to assist landlords in renting their available rental units to prospective TMHA tenants. All landlords need to do is to telephone our office at (330) 308-8099 and provide us with some information about the rental unit which is available. Generally, we will want to know the address of the unit, what you are asking for in rent, how many bedrooms are contained in the unit and the landlord contact information. TMHA will then add this information to our current available units list. This list is distributed to all TMHA Voucher Holders who ask for it. These folks are the ones who are interested in finding new places to rent at the current moment. So, if you have a rental unit that is currently available and you want some free assistance in trying to find a prospective tenant, take just a moment and call TMHA to have your unit added to the list of currently available rental units!

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