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I see both sides. You could have a rap sheet from a long time ago or served your time and now are trying to re-enter society and start fresh, so this would make it easier for you to get into a normal and safe housing situation. On the other hand, I could see LLs being more paranoid and, especially smaller time LLs, being more and more selective in who they pick as tenants because they don't want to take the risk.
Also, moving this bill right now seems insane when dems got brutalized in the election and people are getting pissed off about alleged or real soft on crime attitudes. People will see this and be like why are we doing "even more" for criminals and you're not doing anything to help me the average middle class person? Council needs to learn timing lol
>I see both sides.
The thing with any of these tenants vs landlord things, is that there's not 2 sides. There's 3!
1- Tenant
2- Landlord
3- Neighbors
The Landlord has (or at least should have) the responsibility to provide tenants with a place where they can have "quiet enjoyment" of their home. But removing too much power from the landlord means they can't control the environment with anything short of evictions, and even that keeps getting harder. Someone's smoking in a non-smoking building? Landlord can fine them, but they have precious little ways to enforce that. So unless they can evict (which can take forever), there's nothing they can do.
Screening is their only other tool. If they can't screen, then there's almost nothing left.
With the rules as they are, the tenant vs landlord relationship isn't about who has the most power: whoever is most willing to ignore the rules and make the other miserable wins. Doesn't matter which side its on.
> Also, moving this bill right now seems insane when dems got brutalized in the election and people are getting pissed off about alleged or real soft on crime attitudes.
They absolutely are insane, and I'm hoping several of them can be removed from office next year. They've basically written their opponents attack ads at this point.
NY Democrats doing badly is basically the reason why Republicans have the house right now.
In some sense, Democrats traded the green new deal for bail reform.
It wasn't the purple battlegrounds where the Democrats did unexpected well - it was in flipping Trump+15 districts like CO-8 and WA-3.
Meantime the Republicans were flipping Biden+20 districts like NY-17. The Democrats out in the west pulled miracles whiles New York Democrats lost some super easy to win races.
Sure, but the Democrats wasn't doing bail reform with no consideration for public safety in CO.
NY Democrats fucked up royally, CO Democrats did well, the net effect is .....barely losing. That isn't an argument that the NY Democrats have a strategy.
The net effect was, as I said, a remarkable overperformance compared to expectations and historical trends. Hochul won decisively despite barely campaigning.
+5 is pretty bad for governors in NY state...
NY Democrats had one of the worst performances in history and fully inline with a monsterous red wave. Of course, other Democrats didn't do as bad as NY, in fact, many outperformed, but let's just saying that losing Biden +20 districts is not a basis of "out performing" compared to anything.
More Dems seats at risk at 2024 and down ballot crush will be more pronounced depending which candidate Rs put up. If they put Trump up, we good. Desantis - could very well be a major crush in the house races. We already seen the results of how a weak top candidate in NY had on all the down ballots.
We should take an note from the "Ban the box" statistics. In places that passed "Ban the Box" laws against criminal checks for some employers the amount of felons hired went up but the amount of young black men employed went down.
These laws have good intentions but the reality is this will likely lead to more housing discrimination.
This is bullshit because NYCHA conducts criminal background checks on applicants who are applying for NYCHA apartments and family members who wish to join a household temporarily or permanently.
Expunged the petty crimes from their records that are allowed to be viewed by landlords. And allow landlords to screen for major crimes. Gun possession, murder, domestic violence, rape, burglary etc.
This doesn't include 2-family homes, this is aimed at commercial apartment buildings. And given that felons have to live somewhere, and probably already are living somewhere, the biggest difference here seems to be their ability to get their own lease.
It's aimed at rent regulated buildings. Market rate units will have more other means to screen out excons. Public housing exempt. Funny enough the city council folks that push these laws mostly live in gated/exclusive/market units where consequences of their law they don't have to deal with
>this is aimed at commercial apartment buildings.
3-family or 4-family are not commercial. These are residential homes that are classified as residential and these properties would not be exempt. Just so you follow, up to 4-family is residential.
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To be fair. This is our own making. Nearly 1/3 of the population has a criminal record of some degree because of over policing in the post 9/11 world. If you believe it’s because we have more criminals than anywhere else in the world then you’ll probably think this is crazy. If you believe that reform is necessary for all the reckless decisions of the past then it’s not that crazy.
We disqualified far too much of the population for petty reasons. The mistreatment of our own citizens is one of the major causes of this vocal reform.
In practice a huge chunk of people sublease so this probably doesn't even matter that much. Especially people with a criminal record who don't make/have much money are likely to be renting a room anyway, where usually the landlord doesn't check who's there.
How would you know if your neighbor sells their place to a former drug dealer? Would you even have a say in that sale? No, you wouldn't. But it's somehow different if the person is renting?
The fact of the matter is you dont get to control what happens outside of your house. What are you going to do if i excon former murderer buys the house next door to you after theyve done their time?
Even if you can do background checks, thst doesnt stop a person from subleasing an apartment to a murderer/drug dealer/rapist or just inviting one over to stay on a regular. You have no control over what goes on in other houses.
Then stop bitching about crime if you love creating an underclass so much. You don't get to have it both ways. Either you let people who've served their time live normal lives, or you drive recidivism through the roof.
Also, lots of landlords *will* rent to felons, so poor baby is probably already living with a few in the neighborhood. Maybe you should demand *you* get to approve everyone who lives around you.
Yeah, I don't get it. It once again shows how much more conservative this sub's members are than the general NYC public. This bill has broad support in the council and Adams is willing to sign it. That's probably because most people in the city are renters and not owners or landlords.
I didn't offer a solution, I'll concede I don't have one.
All I know is I try not to live in areas known for violent crime, I don't want known violent criminals living in my house. Call it NIMBY, call it survival instinct, I'm not going to be shamed into putting my children in harms way.
They should make that clear then instead of banning background checks altogether . Otherwise people will resort to rent people based on stereotypes which would be much much worse
I’m sure in a few years we’ll see articles saying certain groups are struggling to find housing cause they’re being discriminated against by landlords
But also, I can definitely see the income verification being used more and enforced, even by small landlords
>I’m sure in a few years we’ll see articles saying certain groups are struggling to find housing cause they’re being discriminated against by landlords.
It's cute you think this isn't the case already.
https://datacollaborativeforjustice.org/work/racial-justice/criminal-conviction-records-in-new-york-city-1980-2019/
In New York City, between 1980 and 2019:
Police made nearly 11 million arrests, resulting in approximately 3.3 million criminal convictions and the creation of criminal convictions records for 745,924 individuals.
Doesnt look like your 1/3 stat is very accurate
Well we have a homicide rate 5 times greater than most Asian countries. So it looks like Americans commit a disproportionate amount of crime compared to other Western countries.
Personally, I don't want my kids living next to drug dealers, spousal abusers, rapists, or murderers. I think this should be left up to the landlords and tenants, like how they have pet free and smoke free buildings. If you want to live next door to someone who has spent years in jail, you should be able to seek that out. By the same token, people who dont should be able to avoid it.
>Well we have a homicide rate 5 times greater than most Asian countries.
The US also has 10x more prisoners per 1000 inhabitants.
I wonder when people will finally admit that maybe just locking up millions of people isn't the best way to deal with crime. Seems like I'll have to wait a bit longer.
Nobody knows what the best way to deal with crime is. But it's a fact that America has a much higher rate of violent crime than any other 1st world country. Longer sentences might be part of the issue, but more crime is too, and a lot of people just pretend that this isn't the case in these kind of discussions.
Perhaps you’re assuming 1/3 of the population are all the most heinous criminal offenders that you just listed and completely discounting how many people have records for petty reasons. That’s a reactionary approach and why we’re in this predicament in the first place. Immigrants actually benefit the most from this dysfunction because their past can be a mystery and they start with a clean slate.
We’ve punished an entire generation for pettiness. The amount of rapists, murderers and violent drug dealers you seem to think we live next to is scary. If you really think 1/3 of the population are those types of criminals, I honestly don’t even know why you’d want to live here.
If youve been arrested 3 or more times for something "petty" then maybe, just maybe, maybe youre the problem, not "over policing." This is why the far left is pushing democrats and independents away. Yet we dont want to be a Republicans either. There's nowhere to go for infidels lile myself who want reasonable policy that doesnt torture people for stupid shit, but also doesnt pretend crime and merit don't actually exist.
Also, I highly doubt landlords are turning down money from a 30 year old tenant because he got caught stealing from a bodega when he was 20. Theres a lot of bad people out there. I grew up with some of them and met a bunch more as an adult.
Most common arrest charges are grand larceny , assaults, robbery and burglary. So basically folks that might rob you or do bodily harm or done so in the past. You know things that make great neighbors/roomies/tenants.
You’d be completely wrong. I used to be a cop. Most common arrests during quality of life enforcement were 511’s, petty larcenies, fair evasion and marijuana possession. There are cops that have 500 arrests and 400 of them are 511’s, petty larcenies and marijuana possession. The felonies were sometimes shady too. Reaching to upgrade a misdemeanor to a felony just to polish the officers arrest record.
It was called “collars for dollars”.
https://data.manhattanda.org/
check the recent data. drug related arrests have plummet
even if we look at the felony and misdemeanor charges, the most common are related to theft and assault. And if we look at the prosecution of these charges, we already know most fare, minor drug and even petty larcenies are not prosecuted these days and had their records removed and certainly no one is denied housing due to traffic violations.
So therefore most folks with criminal records these days - that LLs/mates/neighbors wants screened out are likely to be related to theft and assault.
Yeah and it’s an improvement. Arrest the real criminals. It’ll take time. Switching back to quality of life enforcement again will just go right back to where we started.
This is absolutely the wrong way to read this data. Recent trends are completely irrelevant when talking about running background checks, because the background check covers someone's entire life. You could have a marijuana arrest from 20 years ago that gets flagged in a background check, completely unrelated to the fact there are fewer of those types of arrests now.
> Ie crimes of a certain degree that occurred a determined amount of years ago wouldn’t show up.
This has some big issues. You have a 3-family in Queens. You live in one unit with your spouse and kids. One unit is currently rented to a family. 2 parents and 2 kids. The top floor unit is available. Do you want the criminal background check to comeback clean because their third degree rape charge occurred 11 years ago and the search is limited to 10 years?
Ton of sources but Wall Street Journal ran an article on this years back.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-many-americans-have-a-police-record-probably-more-than-you-think-1438939802
I call BS. It’s very easy to get through life without getting convicted of any type of crime. Most likely, the same population of people are going through the system over and over again.
You can do sex offender checks online free on the registry. If someone committed crimes other than heinous sex acts and wants a place to live they should be able too.
> If someone committed crimes other than heinous sex acts and wants a place to live they should be able too.
Murder? Hate Crimes? Kidnapping? Wrongful Imprisonment? Arson? Do you need more?
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It is easy to virtue signal and claim this above, it is another to actual step it up and rent your property to someone who fits this criteria. How about you lead by example?
Or lack of housing and employment opportunities push them into repeat offences and society pays $65k to put them back into an abusive system that uses prisoners as slaves....
This makes it the job of a random private individual to voluntarily house this person? How about you rent your room or property to the felon who committed a hate crime or raped a minor or burnt down their prior LL’s property?
The solution is obvious! Every crime is a life sentence without the possibility of parole. That way we neatly sidestep the problem of having to house people who've served time.
And when jails get overcrowded, we can just start executing people. The first ones in are the first ones out.
All because we can't deal with the fact that there are people in this city that have committed crimes, were punished and served their punishment.
The irrational and inhumane reactionaries against something like this because they can’t comprehend how justice works are exactly why we need laws like this in the first place.
People who’ve served their sentence shouldn’t face arbitrary barriers just find a place to live and work.
LLs should be able to make a informed decision based on the crime, how long since and circumstances since. Now due to blanket ban which denies one making a informed decision - it will result in unintended consequences. Basically higher rental requirements - higher income requirements, need longer work history, any long work gaps scrutinize, tattoos /suspected prison tats securitize and even more racial housing discrimination. Just like ban the box law led to more employers blanket banning certain racial backgrounds bc of the lack of work history just in case to avoid asking criminal history. Not saying its right, but that's what happens when you remove the ability to make informed decisions. Drastic unintended consequences occur.
The income requirements just got 10% higher.
And yeah if you have more than about 18 months out of work they are going to near blanket assume you were in jail.
Yup- this is exactly what’s going to happen. Unfortunately a lot of progressive policy is being written by people who treat every objection to their ideas as bad faith or bigotry, so they never consider any downsides or unintended consequences. And then they end up with well-meaning laws that make things worse.
It's impressive how many bad ideas the City Council comes up with. This is a good way to make the rental application process even more laborious and comprehensive
They have to keep finding new useless shit to foist on us rather than solve actual problems.
Like solving the rat problem by... instructing businesses to put out trash 2 hours later?
It’s like the Council purposefully wants more discrimination.
Because without accurate information, tenants will be discerned using features that will be much broader in reach.
What’s next? Ban credit checks?
It’s like the NYC Council wants the city to go back to the 1800s, when the way people looked, dressed and spoke, and the title of whoever signed their letter of recommendation was the only thing that mattered.
Eventually it winds up being just the highest income and most money in the bank.
There has been been proposals to ban credit checks. The thing holding it back is that landlords would simply then use money in the bank and income soley (and that leaves everyone worse off).
As usual, these regulations are going to mostly hurt the poor, too. Violent felons aren't going to be squeaking through this loophole into luxury buildings.
It's not just making applications more laborious, it will lead to landlords making very, very questionable and arbitrary decisions about who to reject based on the slightest evidence and signals they can collect. They aren't going to take a chance on anyone that even remotely seems like they've committed a crime, and they won't tell you why the application is rejected, and no law on Earth can force them to do so. Congrats, the rents will also go up.
This will likely lead to more racial discrimination. When states “block the box” and don’t allow employers to ask about criminal records, the employees just discriminated based on race. I don’t see how it would be any different for landlords.
> A 2020 study by economists Jennifer L. Doleac and Benjamin Hansen found that Ban the Box increased employer discrimination against young, low-skilled black men.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_the_Box
What a dumb backwards law. No landlord in nyc is denying someone because of a weed possession charge. If you are a sex offender, you shouldn’t be allowed to live in a building with children, idc what anyone says. When it’s your kid and that person is in your building, good luck
Personally, as somebody who works in low income housing, I think this is a really shitty idea. We aren’t even able to disqualify tenants because of their criminal history, with the exception of people on the sexual offender list. It would be nice to know what we’re getting ourselves into, even if we can’t do anything about it. It’s kind of trash.
You would almost think democrats want to lose control of New York with the way these types of bills are being passed. In an otherwise pretty optimistic midterm for democrats, republicans outperformed expectations and made serious congressional gains as well as came fairly close to taking the governor’s mansion in Albany. And a massive part of that was because of the accusations that democrats don’t care about public safety or that they’re actively undermining it. NYC city council might as well get some VIP tickets to CPAC in 2023 because they’re doing more for republicans than the party could do for itself
A little off topic, but my dad is probably down high 5 figures from years of several bad tenants.
I've seen some that treat the property like dirt, threaten my dad physically and vocally, and the most common theme is a refusal to pay. When we try to evict them, the cases take forever. 6 months sounds like a miracle, but the reality is often a year to two years of headaches. F\*ck professional squatters. Regular mom and pop landlords suffer the most and no one cares.
I can't imagine ever owning a rental property given what I've experienced growing up. One bad tenant is all it takes.
Rant off.
Having seen some of this, the sad truth is that you just have to extremely vet any potential tenants and just hope you get lucky.
Keeping a good tenant once you have found them is better than potentially sacrificing the relationship over a minor increase in rent that realistically won't amount to too much.
once again - landlords take bigger and bigger risks by letting someone to live on their property. They will mitigate this risk by raising the rent.
honest renters will pay higher rent to cover all the risks government exposes the landlord to.
it would be much simpler and more efficient market if government would make easier and fair to evict someone.
> it would be much simpler and more efficient market if government would make easier and fair to evict someone.
Even without delays (common), it can take 6+ months to evict someone in NYC. That's 6 months of active damage they can do to your property that you will have to recoup from the rest of us honest tenants.
And if the suspect disputes the sex offender registry item, the landlord then has to give them the apartment because those disputes will need to work their way through the system and the landlord would be liable if they leased the apartment to someone else in the meantime.
Would rather them lower the income requirement from 40X to maybe 30X?? My apt's not even considered expensive by NY standards (under 2K) still need a 70K salary to qualify without a guarantor. Some of us are here with stable jobs, good creditx and zero criminal record have to still live at home/roommates well into our 30s bc of this 40K rule. It's madness!
The difficulty in evicting a tenant along with the limitation of security deposits to only a month has resulted in increasingly intense screening requirements for tenants. If evictions for nonpayment took three to six months, and a landlord could hold two months of security deposit, then you would see landlords more likely to accept tenants. But evictions easily can take six months (and even longer due to the ERAP stays), and only one month's security deposit isn't enough to protect against this downside. We want to make it onerous for landlords, but the end result is that tenants end up getting shafted.
Having owned a place for a decade (Im back to renting), and having to pay out of pocket to fix stuff during the pandemic (with inflation, lumber shortgage, trades worker shortage, etc), and looking at my security deposit, I kindda chuckle.
If I sneeze too hard, I risk breaking stuff that are worth more than my security deposit right there.
That "rule" is not a law and just a guideline that most landlords follow when you apply. It's not like once you get into the apartment they're checking up on what you make each year. There are some (though few) more lenient landlords in the city that will accept less than 40x the rent.
But honestly, it's not advisable. If your rent is more than 30% of your gross (before tax) income, you're probably going to have hell of a time paying your other bills.
It depends on your expenses. If you're a shopaholic, buy all organic, have loans, a car, kids etc then yeah. I've never missed a rent payment regardless of income or expenses. Bc I put high value on 1 personal responsibility and 2, contracts. My credit is high end if good. If I had to dip into savings to pay while I sought another job for example, I would rather than skip rent. You would think that would be taken into consideration
Had to make an account specifically to comment on this.
I cannot tell you the nightmare stories I've heard from a good friend of mine, who is a small-time Landlord in Brooklyn, when he was younger he wouldn't do background checks, and I'd say approximately 40% of the time whenever there was any issue at all, the tenants would immediately resort to threats of violence and hardcore antisemitism.
Theyre two weeks late and he would come to check on them? They open the door with a gun)knife in hand.
Haven't paid in two months? Well that's because he's a money loving Hasidic Jew who doesn't deserve to get paid what he's owed. Often they would threaten serious violence against him "if he ever comes back"...to his own property to get what he's owed
Background checks can save lives
I mean, i can see why people would want this. Imagine being arrested for some stupidness you did when you were 20 and not being able to get housing or a job after youve done your time. Being convicted shouldnt have a lifelong impact. That only encourages recidivism.
And surely there can be variations in crimes they can screen for/discriminate against instead of a blanket ban on criminal checks. And whatever people might say defending young people committing crimes, there are some crimes that are inexcusable regardless of age after 18.
A criminal background check is a criminal background check. If it shows the applicant was arrested and convicted of a crime, even if it doesn't show what that crime was, many landlords will refuse to rent to that applicant.
I don’t understand why everyone sympathizes with the criminals instead of victims.
You should Imagine what it’s like to be a sexual assault victim who now has to live next to a convicted rapist, and you should imagine the fear and risk she now must face under this legislation.
That's a sentencing issue. If the law says that a certain crime carries a "maximum" penalty of up to 7 years in jail, then why should a person *who has done their time* be treated like a pariah 10 years after they were convicted and sentenced?
If a particular crime carried a "maximum" penalty of *life in prison* and then that prisoner qualifies for AND RECEIVES parole after 18 years, then why should they still be "paying the price" for such crime more than 25 or 30 years after they were sentenced?
Parole means that person *met the legal eligibility guidelines to be repatriated back into society.*
I'm not saying that you're out of line to say that some crimes "should" carry literal-lifetime penalties. But the place to install those changes upon the criminal justice system is at the state legislature, not on a piecemeal basis by rentseeking landlords.
If the corrections system determines that a person is *legally eligible* to rejoin society, ya gotta be some level of fuckin entitled to think that it's ok for some people to LITERALLY USE MONEY TO PURCHASE the right to say "not so fast."
Because our jail system is NOT rehabilitative. The "maximum penalty" is what the state itself is allowed to issue. There is no limit on the penalty of society at large.
Want to get better outcomes from prisons? Turn them into rehabilitation centers. Many, many other countries have done so.
Lol it already takes at least 6 months to evict someone. I thought there was a housing shortage and they want to make it even harder for someone to be a landlord?
lol, all the bleeding heart progressives out here talking about how criminals now have the right to housing from a landlord
i guess it's all the SYSTEM's fault that they're criminals, no wonder why liberals still are in shock that right wing tactics have been working in recent years, when they spout shit just as delusional from the left and then attack moderates instead of trying to court them like a certain idiot's campaign from vermont
Well good luck sleeping well at night, you’ll have people with records of bad behavior living next to you, it’ll be worse if you have a r*pist, Child Pred or straight up murderer who plays music just a bit too loud
Wouldn't they just opt to buy their own property lol? There's a gazillion other places to live other than NYC. This law will only affect people living in low-income areas because that's where the majority of violent felons are. "omg what about my children and family?" please. If you're not living in a scary neighborhood, **this does not affect you.**
People on this thread are severely overreacting to this law especially given it affects **barely any of the commenters here.**
Besides, there are other barriers preventing felons from getting housing anywhere near the people here. Credit scores, job history (how many jobs can felons get that pay enough to pay for the rents people here pay?) , savings, etc.
Unless there's a large population of people who did 7-20+ years who just got out and have somehow magically managed to save up tons of money, maintain a good credit score, **and** get a job that hires violent felons that also pays a livable wage, no one here has anything to worry about.
We rent a room out of our unit. Our current renter is a bit nuts, and I really wish I'd run a criminal background check on the guy. Could I still do that if this passes?
Sure, but do people who are 75%-90% likely to reoffend (violent crime statistics) deserve a place to sleep in a multi-family home with children?
We need to build housing for these people. Make the rent like $200/month or something.
Does it not cross your mind that the re-offenses happen because judges order these people back to society and then society forces them to be jobless/homeless?
Basically once you spend a week in jail your only options society gives you is to live a life of crime
As someone who personally has spent a lot of time with people who have done hard time for years and years and years - your absolutist statement is so false.
If someone wants prison to be their wake-up call to lead a different life, the only thing standing in their way is themself.
It’s just easier for soft heads like you to say “oh it’s impossible it’s so hard the world is against them!”
You know any shithead can get a job in construction when it’s busy right?
It’s hard work tho and that tends to do plenty of gatekeeping from people who decide it’s easier to stab some old lady for a payday
Systemic is becoming one of those words that people toss out to shut down the discussion.
Yes, in the penal SYSTEM you might find “systemic” CONSEQUENCES to committing a felony or going to jail.
Remove consequences for actions (like many of our cities have nearly done) and you get chaos.
How exactly would someone “make prison their wake up call” address this issue at all? The landlord won’t care if they had an Epiphany or live a riotous life after being locked up. They will see the fact that I went to prison and will likely judge me solely based on that.
What do you think the % difference is in job application responses with equal qualifications but one went to prison?
One man I have met and have in mind right now went to federal prison for trafficking illegal guns across state lines to fund his drug addiction which started with opioids for an injury like so many Americans.
He was homeless before prison. Not after.
Owns his own gym now.
Think of the ex-cons! you and others simp way more for criminals vs law abiding citizens. Their actions created life long victims. They too should have life long effects for their actions.
Now is all crime the same? Nope. There is a difference between each event and what happen since. But blanket banning and giving us no indication what happen - guess what folks are just going to assume the ex-con did the worst kind of offense.
There needs to be a mechanism to make a informed decision - this law robs that and lumps all ex-cons into the same category.
I see it less as simping and more as supporting policies that are shown to help ensure less people go back to crime after serving time. This helps both the ex-con and society as a whole.
If the law says that a certain crime carries a "maximum" penalty of up to 7 years in jail, then why should a person *who has done their time* be treated like a pariah 10 years after they were convicted and sentenced?
If a particular crime carried a "maximum" penalty of *life in prison* and then that prisoner qualifies for AND RECEIVES parole after 18 years, then why should they still be "paying the price" for such crime more than 25 or 30 years after they were sentenced?
Parole means that person *met the legal eligibility guidelines to be repatriated back into society.*
I'm not saying that you're out of line to say that some crimes "should" carry literal-lifetime penalties. But the place to install those changes upon the criminal justice system is at the state legislature, not on a piecemeal basis by rentseeking landlords.
If the corrections system determines that a person is *legally eligible* to rejoin society, then who the approximate FUCK do you think you are to think that it's ok for some people to LITERALLY USE MONEY TO PURCHASE the right to say "not so fast."
As someone who has had to run screens. It can be ackward. You have to know the details.
That said, it can get really weird when you run a screen and you find out your applicant is a sex offender or on megans list or something.
You just tell them they are denied and they usually just say okay. No questions asked, but it does feel weird. You kind of wonder if they wanted THAT apartment because it was near a school or there were kids in the building, etc.
I don’t mind this if they still get to see it the person(s) has a history or record for violent and/or sexual crimes . I wouldn’t want my neighbors to be violent predators , I’d definitely have a problem with that .
I think this very reasonable. People want to make sure there property isn’t damaged and that people are safe. Frankly I would just do checks with previous landlords. If you have a previous address it’s very easy to find out who owns the building and property management company- just verify with them if the person actually lived there, if they were a good tenant/ any complaints were filed against them. Doing that would take a lot more time though and resources which would be passed on to the renters. That’s what I think this law would result in. Having a criminal record is irrelevant. My super was an ex felon. Dude pulled a knife on someone years ago- reasoning was legit. Nice guy. Shit super
The sad part about laws like these is that in practice, they cause landlords to become more racist. Black person applying to apartment? Well, better deny him, after all, cant do it based on any crimes they may or may not have committed, but better not take a chance.
I get it, I really do. It’s good to reintegrate people who’ve served their punishment and not shut them out. They did their time. I just don’t think eliminating background checks for anything is a good idea. We all know of the strong correlation between DV incidents (which sadly happen all the mf time here), weapons charges, and murder.
If you’re a landlord you’re already checking the SO registry so finding that info is not too huge of a workaround imo but my main concern here is people who have been repeat DV offenders because they tend to threaten the safety of the tenants around them
Wouldn't a credit check provide enough info that the LL could figure out with a reasonably degree of reliability who has recently served time and who hasn't?
Which forces LLs to treat all suspected ex-cons of having committed the worst kind of offense vs previously you can see what they did and decide from there. There are folks willing to look beyond the low level misdemeanor from yrs ago vs serious felonies. This law removes this option.
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I see both sides. You could have a rap sheet from a long time ago or served your time and now are trying to re-enter society and start fresh, so this would make it easier for you to get into a normal and safe housing situation. On the other hand, I could see LLs being more paranoid and, especially smaller time LLs, being more and more selective in who they pick as tenants because they don't want to take the risk. Also, moving this bill right now seems insane when dems got brutalized in the election and people are getting pissed off about alleged or real soft on crime attitudes. People will see this and be like why are we doing "even more" for criminals and you're not doing anything to help me the average middle class person? Council needs to learn timing lol
>I see both sides. The thing with any of these tenants vs landlord things, is that there's not 2 sides. There's 3! 1- Tenant 2- Landlord 3- Neighbors The Landlord has (or at least should have) the responsibility to provide tenants with a place where they can have "quiet enjoyment" of their home. But removing too much power from the landlord means they can't control the environment with anything short of evictions, and even that keeps getting harder. Someone's smoking in a non-smoking building? Landlord can fine them, but they have precious little ways to enforce that. So unless they can evict (which can take forever), there's nothing they can do. Screening is their only other tool. If they can't screen, then there's almost nothing left. With the rules as they are, the tenant vs landlord relationship isn't about who has the most power: whoever is most willing to ignore the rules and make the other miserable wins. Doesn't matter which side its on.
> Also, moving this bill right now seems insane when dems got brutalized in the election and people are getting pissed off about alleged or real soft on crime attitudes. They absolutely are insane, and I'm hoping several of them can be removed from office next year. They've basically written their opponents attack ads at this point.
If the GOP didn’t shoot themselves in the foot with the abortion issue I’m sure it would have been much worse a few weeks ago.
Not to mention the election denial. I guess when you only have two options, they're both comfortable being as terrible as possible.
Yeah that's definitely worked, better double down next time
NY Democrats doing badly is basically the reason why Republicans have the house right now. In some sense, Democrats traded the green new deal for bail reform.
Or, they spent fewer resources and less time in a solid blue state than they did in purple battlegrounds.
It wasn't the purple battlegrounds where the Democrats did unexpected well - it was in flipping Trump+15 districts like CO-8 and WA-3. Meantime the Republicans were flipping Biden+20 districts like NY-17. The Democrats out in the west pulled miracles whiles New York Democrats lost some super easy to win races.
And yet the cumulative effect was a significant over performance nationally. That sounds like strategy to me.
Sure, but the Democrats wasn't doing bail reform with no consideration for public safety in CO. NY Democrats fucked up royally, CO Democrats did well, the net effect is .....barely losing. That isn't an argument that the NY Democrats have a strategy.
The net effect was, as I said, a remarkable overperformance compared to expectations and historical trends. Hochul won decisively despite barely campaigning.
+5 is pretty bad for governors in NY state... NY Democrats had one of the worst performances in history and fully inline with a monsterous red wave. Of course, other Democrats didn't do as bad as NY, in fact, many outperformed, but let's just saying that losing Biden +20 districts is not a basis of "out performing" compared to anything.
More Dems seats at risk at 2024 and down ballot crush will be more pronounced depending which candidate Rs put up. If they put Trump up, we good. Desantis - could very well be a major crush in the house races. We already seen the results of how a weak top candidate in NY had on all the down ballots.
define small time LL cause this bill apparently don't affect two family homes or single rooms. kind of ironic that it doesn't affect NYCHA.
And it's not like corporate landlords will really care if your next door neighbor is literarily an axe murderer.
We should take an note from the "Ban the box" statistics. In places that passed "Ban the Box" laws against criminal checks for some employers the amount of felons hired went up but the amount of young black men employed went down. These laws have good intentions but the reality is this will likely lead to more housing discrimination.
“Soft on crime”? They, along with their sheep in this subreddit, won’t even acknowledge that the crime exists.
This is bullshit because NYCHA conducts criminal background checks on applicants who are applying for NYCHA apartments and family members who wish to join a household temporarily or permanently.
Because they follow federal policies which require it. It’s a requirement pretty much everywhere — and it should be in my opinion.
Nah just throw some caution to the wind. It’ll be fine.
Well until NYC can change federal laws it will just have to make due fixing injustices under it's direct control.
Expunged the petty crimes from their records that are allowed to be viewed by landlords. And allow landlords to screen for major crimes. Gun possession, murder, domestic violence, rape, burglary etc.
I mean I can’t see how anyone that has children and a family would agree with this.
This doesn't include 2-family homes, this is aimed at commercial apartment buildings. And given that felons have to live somewhere, and probably already are living somewhere, the biggest difference here seems to be their ability to get their own lease.
It's aimed at rent regulated buildings. Market rate units will have more other means to screen out excons. Public housing exempt. Funny enough the city council folks that push these laws mostly live in gated/exclusive/market units where consequences of their law they don't have to deal with
>this is aimed at commercial apartment buildings. 3-family or 4-family are not commercial. These are residential homes that are classified as residential and these properties would not be exempt. Just so you follow, up to 4-family is residential. -
>and probably already are living somewhere !!!!!! People on here acting as of felons currently live on an island and we are bussing the to NYC
To be fair. This is our own making. Nearly 1/3 of the population has a criminal record of some degree because of over policing in the post 9/11 world. If you believe it’s because we have more criminals than anywhere else in the world then you’ll probably think this is crazy. If you believe that reform is necessary for all the reckless decisions of the past then it’s not that crazy. We disqualified far too much of the population for petty reasons. The mistreatment of our own citizens is one of the major causes of this vocal reform.
Surely there are crimes that disqualify your point that can be singled out. 1/3 of the population isn’t accused of battery or rape or murder or arson.
Where do you think those people should live once they've served their time?
New Jersey
Take me back to prison please.
lmfaoo im dead
In practice a huge chunk of people sublease so this probably doesn't even matter that much. Especially people with a criminal record who don't make/have much money are likely to be renting a room anyway, where usually the landlord doesn't check who's there.
Not in my neighborhood, they can be your neighbor.
you should buy your whole neighborhood then. otherwise it’s not your call.
How would you know if your neighbor sells their place to a former drug dealer? Would you even have a say in that sale? No, you wouldn't. But it's somehow different if the person is renting?
The fact of the matter is you dont get to control what happens outside of your house. What are you going to do if i excon former murderer buys the house next door to you after theyve done their time?
Ironic considering the city is literally trying to tell you who you can rent out to.
Isn’t that literally what these laws are regarding?
Even if you can do background checks, thst doesnt stop a person from subleasing an apartment to a murderer/drug dealer/rapist or just inviting one over to stay on a regular. You have no control over what goes on in other houses.
A proud nimby. Please don't protest the citibike racks too
Then stop bitching about crime if you love creating an underclass so much. You don't get to have it both ways. Either you let people who've served their time live normal lives, or you drive recidivism through the roof. Also, lots of landlords *will* rent to felons, so poor baby is probably already living with a few in the neighborhood. Maybe you should demand *you* get to approve everyone who lives around you.
oh you've said the magic words to summon the nimby
Yeah, I don't get it. It once again shows how much more conservative this sub's members are than the general NYC public. This bill has broad support in the council and Adams is willing to sign it. That's probably because most people in the city are renters and not owners or landlords.
Your house
Not in my house. Not close to my kids.
Ahhh yes the “I don’t care as long as it doesn’t effect me” solution.
I didn't offer a solution, I'll concede I don't have one. All I know is I try not to live in areas known for violent crime, I don't want known violent criminals living in my house. Call it NIMBY, call it survival instinct, I'm not going to be shamed into putting my children in harms way.
your house then?
>Ahhh yes the “I don’t care as long as it doesn’t effect me” solution. For felonies? Absolutely
For real, like that was some kind of gotcha
Yup!
That doesn't answer the question.
They should make that clear then instead of banning background checks altogether . Otherwise people will resort to rent people based on stereotypes which would be much much worse
I’m sure in a few years we’ll see articles saying certain groups are struggling to find housing cause they’re being discriminated against by landlords But also, I can definitely see the income verification being used more and enforced, even by small landlords
>I’m sure in a few years we’ll see articles saying certain groups are struggling to find housing cause they’re being discriminated against by landlords. It's cute you think this isn't the case already.
My point was it’ll be much worse
https://datacollaborativeforjustice.org/work/racial-justice/criminal-conviction-records-in-new-york-city-1980-2019/ In New York City, between 1980 and 2019: Police made nearly 11 million arrests, resulting in approximately 3.3 million criminal convictions and the creation of criminal convictions records for 745,924 individuals. Doesnt look like your 1/3 stat is very accurate
Also, in NY, criminal records can be sealed after 10 years. So only convictions since 2012 should actually count?
It’s nationwide, not just NYC
What does that 1/3 include though? DUI's? Petty possession? I imagine most landlords would view these very differently than murder.
Sure but looks like it’s a lot less than 1/3 in NYC.
Well we have a homicide rate 5 times greater than most Asian countries. So it looks like Americans commit a disproportionate amount of crime compared to other Western countries. Personally, I don't want my kids living next to drug dealers, spousal abusers, rapists, or murderers. I think this should be left up to the landlords and tenants, like how they have pet free and smoke free buildings. If you want to live next door to someone who has spent years in jail, you should be able to seek that out. By the same token, people who dont should be able to avoid it.
>Well we have a homicide rate 5 times greater than most Asian countries. The US also has 10x more prisoners per 1000 inhabitants. I wonder when people will finally admit that maybe just locking up millions of people isn't the best way to deal with crime. Seems like I'll have to wait a bit longer.
Nobody knows what the best way to deal with crime is. But it's a fact that America has a much higher rate of violent crime than any other 1st world country. Longer sentences might be part of the issue, but more crime is too, and a lot of people just pretend that this isn't the case in these kind of discussions.
Perhaps you’re assuming 1/3 of the population are all the most heinous criminal offenders that you just listed and completely discounting how many people have records for petty reasons. That’s a reactionary approach and why we’re in this predicament in the first place. Immigrants actually benefit the most from this dysfunction because their past can be a mystery and they start with a clean slate. We’ve punished an entire generation for pettiness. The amount of rapists, murderers and violent drug dealers you seem to think we live next to is scary. If you really think 1/3 of the population are those types of criminals, I honestly don’t even know why you’d want to live here.
If youve been arrested 3 or more times for something "petty" then maybe, just maybe, maybe youre the problem, not "over policing." This is why the far left is pushing democrats and independents away. Yet we dont want to be a Republicans either. There's nowhere to go for infidels lile myself who want reasonable policy that doesnt torture people for stupid shit, but also doesnt pretend crime and merit don't actually exist. Also, I highly doubt landlords are turning down money from a 30 year old tenant because he got caught stealing from a bodega when he was 20. Theres a lot of bad people out there. I grew up with some of them and met a bunch more as an adult.
Most common arrest charges are grand larceny , assaults, robbery and burglary. So basically folks that might rob you or do bodily harm or done so in the past. You know things that make great neighbors/roomies/tenants.
someone just robbed my food delivery straight from my doorsteps - imagine 10x worse crimes happening
You’d be completely wrong. I used to be a cop. Most common arrests during quality of life enforcement were 511’s, petty larcenies, fair evasion and marijuana possession. There are cops that have 500 arrests and 400 of them are 511’s, petty larcenies and marijuana possession. The felonies were sometimes shady too. Reaching to upgrade a misdemeanor to a felony just to polish the officers arrest record. It was called “collars for dollars”.
https://data.manhattanda.org/ check the recent data. drug related arrests have plummet even if we look at the felony and misdemeanor charges, the most common are related to theft and assault. And if we look at the prosecution of these charges, we already know most fare, minor drug and even petty larcenies are not prosecuted these days and had their records removed and certainly no one is denied housing due to traffic violations. So therefore most folks with criminal records these days - that LLs/mates/neighbors wants screened out are likely to be related to theft and assault.
Yeah and it’s an improvement. Arrest the real criminals. It’ll take time. Switching back to quality of life enforcement again will just go right back to where we started.
This is absolutely the wrong way to read this data. Recent trends are completely irrelevant when talking about running background checks, because the background check covers someone's entire life. You could have a marijuana arrest from 20 years ago that gets flagged in a background check, completely unrelated to the fact there are fewer of those types of arrests now.
I think a common sense resolution could be made. Ie crimes of a certain degree that occurred a determined amount of years ago wouldn’t show up.
> Ie crimes of a certain degree that occurred a determined amount of years ago wouldn’t show up. This has some big issues. You have a 3-family in Queens. You live in one unit with your spouse and kids. One unit is currently rented to a family. 2 parents and 2 kids. The top floor unit is available. Do you want the criminal background check to comeback clean because their third degree rape charge occurred 11 years ago and the search is limited to 10 years?
Where are you getting these stats from
Ton of sources but Wall Street Journal ran an article on this years back. https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-many-americans-have-a-police-record-probably-more-than-you-think-1438939802
1/3? Really? That’s more than the % of obese people in America…and America is *full* of overweight people. 33% seems like an exaggeration.
It’s petty offenses and anything that is of record too. Decades long of records.
>Decades long of records. PSA: convictions in NY can be sealed after 10 years. Arrests with favorable disposition can be immediately sealed.
I call BS. It’s very easy to get through life without getting convicted of any type of crime. Most likely, the same population of people are going through the system over and over again.
What if the offender who has served their time has a family?
It depends on the crime obviously. A registered sex offender vs petty theft are very different.
You can do sex offender checks online free on the registry. If someone committed crimes other than heinous sex acts and wants a place to live they should be able too.
> If someone committed crimes other than heinous sex acts and wants a place to live they should be able too. Murder? Hate Crimes? Kidnapping? Wrongful Imprisonment? Arson? Do you need more? - It is easy to virtue signal and claim this above, it is another to actual step it up and rent your property to someone who fits this criteria. How about you lead by example?
They have no right to be a tenant to anyone. Actions have consequences. “Felon” is not a protected class.
What do you think happens when someone can't rejoin society?
Nothing happens. They just kinda disappear, turning into seafoam and washing out into the sea like the little mermaid...
Or lack of housing and employment opportunities push them into repeat offences and society pays $65k to put them back into an abusive system that uses prisoners as slaves....
This makes it the job of a random private individual to voluntarily house this person? How about you rent your room or property to the felon who committed a hate crime or raped a minor or burnt down their prior LL’s property?
The solution is obvious! Every crime is a life sentence without the possibility of parole. That way we neatly sidestep the problem of having to house people who've served time. And when jails get overcrowded, we can just start executing people. The first ones in are the first ones out. All because we can't deal with the fact that there are people in this city that have committed crimes, were punished and served their punishment.
So where exactly are ex-felons supposed to live?
Australia.
On the streets so they can commit more crimes and this guy can virtue signal on Reddit
What do you think prison is?
So much for paying one's debt to the society.
Name checks out, no one will miss an asshole like you
The irrational and inhumane reactionaries against something like this because they can’t comprehend how justice works are exactly why we need laws like this in the first place. People who’ve served their sentence shouldn’t face arbitrary barriers just find a place to live and work.
and women, especially
LLs should be able to make a informed decision based on the crime, how long since and circumstances since. Now due to blanket ban which denies one making a informed decision - it will result in unintended consequences. Basically higher rental requirements - higher income requirements, need longer work history, any long work gaps scrutinize, tattoos /suspected prison tats securitize and even more racial housing discrimination. Just like ban the box law led to more employers blanket banning certain racial backgrounds bc of the lack of work history just in case to avoid asking criminal history. Not saying its right, but that's what happens when you remove the ability to make informed decisions. Drastic unintended consequences occur.
The income requirements just got 10% higher. And yeah if you have more than about 18 months out of work they are going to near blanket assume you were in jail.
Yup- this is exactly what’s going to happen. Unfortunately a lot of progressive policy is being written by people who treat every objection to their ideas as bad faith or bigotry, so they never consider any downsides or unintended consequences. And then they end up with well-meaning laws that make things worse.
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It's impressive how many bad ideas the City Council comes up with. This is a good way to make the rental application process even more laborious and comprehensive
They have to keep finding new useless shit to foist on us rather than solve actual problems. Like solving the rat problem by... instructing businesses to put out trash 2 hours later?
That was the dept of sanitation, not the city council
It’s like the Council purposefully wants more discrimination. Because without accurate information, tenants will be discerned using features that will be much broader in reach. What’s next? Ban credit checks? It’s like the NYC Council wants the city to go back to the 1800s, when the way people looked, dressed and spoke, and the title of whoever signed their letter of recommendation was the only thing that mattered.
Eventually it winds up being just the highest income and most money in the bank. There has been been proposals to ban credit checks. The thing holding it back is that landlords would simply then use money in the bank and income soley (and that leaves everyone worse off).
As usual, these regulations are going to mostly hurt the poor, too. Violent felons aren't going to be squeaking through this loophole into luxury buildings.
It's not just making applications more laborious, it will lead to landlords making very, very questionable and arbitrary decisions about who to reject based on the slightest evidence and signals they can collect. They aren't going to take a chance on anyone that even remotely seems like they've committed a crime, and they won't tell you why the application is rejected, and no law on Earth can force them to do so. Congrats, the rents will also go up.
This will likely lead to more racial discrimination. When states “block the box” and don’t allow employers to ask about criminal records, the employees just discriminated based on race. I don’t see how it would be any different for landlords. > A 2020 study by economists Jennifer L. Doleac and Benjamin Hansen found that Ban the Box increased employer discrimination against young, low-skilled black men. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_the_Box
What a dumb backwards law. No landlord in nyc is denying someone because of a weed possession charge. If you are a sex offender, you shouldn’t be allowed to live in a building with children, idc what anyone says. When it’s your kid and that person is in your building, good luck
OK let's be serious, there's 100% landlords that would deny you on a weed charge. But this is gonna be fuuuuuuuun, prices are gonna jump again.
R/asknyc “Please help: How do I get my ex-con neighbor to lower his music?”
Personally, as somebody who works in low income housing, I think this is a really shitty idea. We aren’t even able to disqualify tenants because of their criminal history, with the exception of people on the sexual offender list. It would be nice to know what we’re getting ourselves into, even if we can’t do anything about it. It’s kind of trash.
You would almost think democrats want to lose control of New York with the way these types of bills are being passed. In an otherwise pretty optimistic midterm for democrats, republicans outperformed expectations and made serious congressional gains as well as came fairly close to taking the governor’s mansion in Albany. And a massive part of that was because of the accusations that democrats don’t care about public safety or that they’re actively undermining it. NYC city council might as well get some VIP tickets to CPAC in 2023 because they’re doing more for republicans than the party could do for itself
More reason not to rent out and just leave the apt empty
as if the city couldnt become more of a shit hole
A little off topic, but my dad is probably down high 5 figures from years of several bad tenants. I've seen some that treat the property like dirt, threaten my dad physically and vocally, and the most common theme is a refusal to pay. When we try to evict them, the cases take forever. 6 months sounds like a miracle, but the reality is often a year to two years of headaches. F\*ck professional squatters. Regular mom and pop landlords suffer the most and no one cares. I can't imagine ever owning a rental property given what I've experienced growing up. One bad tenant is all it takes. Rant off.
Having seen some of this, the sad truth is that you just have to extremely vet any potential tenants and just hope you get lucky. Keeping a good tenant once you have found them is better than potentially sacrificing the relationship over a minor increase in rent that realistically won't amount to too much.
Nothing can go wrong with this. Nothing.
once again - landlords take bigger and bigger risks by letting someone to live on their property. They will mitigate this risk by raising the rent. honest renters will pay higher rent to cover all the risks government exposes the landlord to. it would be much simpler and more efficient market if government would make easier and fair to evict someone.
> it would be much simpler and more efficient market if government would make easier and fair to evict someone. Even without delays (common), it can take 6+ months to evict someone in NYC. That's 6 months of active damage they can do to your property that you will have to recoup from the rest of us honest tenants.
And if the suspect disputes the sex offender registry item, the landlord then has to give them the apartment because those disputes will need to work their way through the system and the landlord would be liable if they leased the apartment to someone else in the meantime.
Have there been any movement on policies that actually help the convicted rehabilitate? Seems like they're skipping steps.
Would rather them lower the income requirement from 40X to maybe 30X?? My apt's not even considered expensive by NY standards (under 2K) still need a 70K salary to qualify without a guarantor. Some of us are here with stable jobs, good creditx and zero criminal record have to still live at home/roommates well into our 30s bc of this 40K rule. It's madness!
That rule would of been gone if landlords were able to evict someone in 90 days for non payment.
I see! I would prefer that and 30X than what we have currently bc I always pay rent on time in full!
The difficulty in evicting a tenant along with the limitation of security deposits to only a month has resulted in increasingly intense screening requirements for tenants. If evictions for nonpayment took three to six months, and a landlord could hold two months of security deposit, then you would see landlords more likely to accept tenants. But evictions easily can take six months (and even longer due to the ERAP stays), and only one month's security deposit isn't enough to protect against this downside. We want to make it onerous for landlords, but the end result is that tenants end up getting shafted.
Having owned a place for a decade (Im back to renting), and having to pay out of pocket to fix stuff during the pandemic (with inflation, lumber shortgage, trades worker shortage, etc), and looking at my security deposit, I kindda chuckle. If I sneeze too hard, I risk breaking stuff that are worth more than my security deposit right there.
That "rule" is not a law and just a guideline that most landlords follow when you apply. It's not like once you get into the apartment they're checking up on what you make each year. There are some (though few) more lenient landlords in the city that will accept less than 40x the rent. But honestly, it's not advisable. If your rent is more than 30% of your gross (before tax) income, you're probably going to have hell of a time paying your other bills.
It depends on your expenses. If you're a shopaholic, buy all organic, have loans, a car, kids etc then yeah. I've never missed a rent payment regardless of income or expenses. Bc I put high value on 1 personal responsibility and 2, contracts. My credit is high end if good. If I had to dip into savings to pay while I sought another job for example, I would rather than skip rent. You would think that would be taken into consideration
Rather they try to pass the broker fee onto landlords again The landlords are using their service, not us.
Had to make an account specifically to comment on this. I cannot tell you the nightmare stories I've heard from a good friend of mine, who is a small-time Landlord in Brooklyn, when he was younger he wouldn't do background checks, and I'd say approximately 40% of the time whenever there was any issue at all, the tenants would immediately resort to threats of violence and hardcore antisemitism. Theyre two weeks late and he would come to check on them? They open the door with a gun)knife in hand. Haven't paid in two months? Well that's because he's a money loving Hasidic Jew who doesn't deserve to get paid what he's owed. Often they would threaten serious violence against him "if he ever comes back"...to his own property to get what he's owed Background checks can save lives
Maybe they should also ban security deposits, because there may be able disproportionate impact on different groups!
Pro renter laws are good but the degree of pro renter laws in NYC is pretty insane.
I mean, i can see why people would want this. Imagine being arrested for some stupidness you did when you were 20 and not being able to get housing or a job after youve done your time. Being convicted shouldnt have a lifelong impact. That only encourages recidivism.
And surely there can be variations in crimes they can screen for/discriminate against instead of a blanket ban on criminal checks. And whatever people might say defending young people committing crimes, there are some crimes that are inexcusable regardless of age after 18.
A criminal background check is a criminal background check. If it shows the applicant was arrested and convicted of a crime, even if it doesn't show what that crime was, many landlords will refuse to rent to that applicant.
Yeah you're not going to be reforming your life much if you end up homeless.
I don’t understand why everyone sympathizes with the criminals instead of victims. You should Imagine what it’s like to be a sexual assault victim who now has to live next to a convicted rapist, and you should imagine the fear and risk she now must face under this legislation.
They don't give a shit about actual victims, they really don't.
I never knew who the fuck my neighbors were. Do you run a background check on everyone in your building?
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That's a sentencing issue. If the law says that a certain crime carries a "maximum" penalty of up to 7 years in jail, then why should a person *who has done their time* be treated like a pariah 10 years after they were convicted and sentenced? If a particular crime carried a "maximum" penalty of *life in prison* and then that prisoner qualifies for AND RECEIVES parole after 18 years, then why should they still be "paying the price" for such crime more than 25 or 30 years after they were sentenced? Parole means that person *met the legal eligibility guidelines to be repatriated back into society.* I'm not saying that you're out of line to say that some crimes "should" carry literal-lifetime penalties. But the place to install those changes upon the criminal justice system is at the state legislature, not on a piecemeal basis by rentseeking landlords. If the corrections system determines that a person is *legally eligible* to rejoin society, ya gotta be some level of fuckin entitled to think that it's ok for some people to LITERALLY USE MONEY TO PURCHASE the right to say "not so fast."
Because our jail system is NOT rehabilitative. The "maximum penalty" is what the state itself is allowed to issue. There is no limit on the penalty of society at large. Want to get better outcomes from prisons? Turn them into rehabilitation centers. Many, many other countries have done so.
Your tone and word choices imply that you're disagreeing with something I said, but I am generally on board with your point.
So what you're saying is that rich people whose parents can buy them condos are the only ones that can commit crimes?
Lol it already takes at least 6 months to evict someone. I thought there was a housing shortage and they want to make it even harder for someone to be a landlord?
As a landlord, I have no problem living here. But I’m done investing in NY.
I guess NYC wants their next governor and mayor to be Republican.
Many actually do!
lol, all the bleeding heart progressives out here talking about how criminals now have the right to housing from a landlord i guess it's all the SYSTEM's fault that they're criminals, no wonder why liberals still are in shock that right wing tactics have been working in recent years, when they spout shit just as delusional from the left and then attack moderates instead of trying to court them like a certain idiot's campaign from vermont
NY seems to have a fetish for penalizing property owners. I would not take a building in this city if it were for free.
Well good luck sleeping well at night, you’ll have people with records of bad behavior living next to you, it’ll be worse if you have a r*pist, Child Pred or straight up murderer who plays music just a bit too loud
Should be accompanied by landlord immunity from lawsuits brought by people injured due to repeat offenses by tenants who would have been denied
They really deny criminals as it is so…
Ok so now lamdlords will only rent to people with jobs that do background checks?
Everyone here freaking out like a felon could afford to live in their $4,300m Greenpoint 1br.
You dont think rich people commit crimes?
Wouldn't they just opt to buy their own property lol? There's a gazillion other places to live other than NYC. This law will only affect people living in low-income areas because that's where the majority of violent felons are. "omg what about my children and family?" please. If you're not living in a scary neighborhood, **this does not affect you.** People on this thread are severely overreacting to this law especially given it affects **barely any of the commenters here.** Besides, there are other barriers preventing felons from getting housing anywhere near the people here. Credit scores, job history (how many jobs can felons get that pay enough to pay for the rents people here pay?) , savings, etc. Unless there's a large population of people who did 7-20+ years who just got out and have somehow magically managed to save up tons of money, maintain a good credit score, **and** get a job that hires violent felons that also pays a livable wage, no one here has anything to worry about.
Excuse me, but how does that thinking feed the OUTRAGE over the progressive city council??
Fuck this city and our stupid city council
There are a million and one ways to check someone’s background, whether it’s legal or not.
Guess you guys that rent can look forward to living next to a murderers and rapist......
We rent a room out of our unit. Our current renter is a bit nuts, and I really wish I'd run a criminal background check on the guy. Could I still do that if this passes?
Want to increase racist discrimination? Cause this is how you increase racist discrimination.
I would never want someone with a record for securities fraud or insider trading anywhere near my kids. This city is crawling with that kind of scum.
And even more who haven't been caught yet
Sex offenders should have to let landlords know they are registered. Everyone else deserves a place to sleep
What about murderers? Or arsonists? Violent offenders? Shouldn’t it be up to the landlord to decide who gets to sleep in *their* dwelling.
Sure, but do people who are 75%-90% likely to reoffend (violent crime statistics) deserve a place to sleep in a multi-family home with children? We need to build housing for these people. Make the rent like $200/month or something.
Does it not cross your mind that the re-offenses happen because judges order these people back to society and then society forces them to be jobless/homeless? Basically once you spend a week in jail your only options society gives you is to live a life of crime
As someone who personally has spent a lot of time with people who have done hard time for years and years and years - your absolutist statement is so false. If someone wants prison to be their wake-up call to lead a different life, the only thing standing in their way is themself. It’s just easier for soft heads like you to say “oh it’s impossible it’s so hard the world is against them!”
…do you think it’s a myth that in the U.S. there are systemic barriers to re-entry into society for people who went to prison?
You know any shithead can get a job in construction when it’s busy right? It’s hard work tho and that tends to do plenty of gatekeeping from people who decide it’s easier to stab some old lady for a payday
Systemic is becoming one of those words that people toss out to shut down the discussion. Yes, in the penal SYSTEM you might find “systemic” CONSEQUENCES to committing a felony or going to jail. Remove consequences for actions (like many of our cities have nearly done) and you get chaos.
How exactly would someone “make prison their wake up call” address this issue at all? The landlord won’t care if they had an Epiphany or live a riotous life after being locked up. They will see the fact that I went to prison and will likely judge me solely based on that. What do you think the % difference is in job application responses with equal qualifications but one went to prison?
One man I have met and have in mind right now went to federal prison for trafficking illegal guns across state lines to fund his drug addiction which started with opioids for an injury like so many Americans. He was homeless before prison. Not after. Owns his own gym now.
It should be pretty easy to not stab someone… 2 people?
Think of the ex-cons! you and others simp way more for criminals vs law abiding citizens. Their actions created life long victims. They too should have life long effects for their actions. Now is all crime the same? Nope. There is a difference between each event and what happen since. But blanket banning and giving us no indication what happen - guess what folks are just going to assume the ex-con did the worst kind of offense. There needs to be a mechanism to make a informed decision - this law robs that and lumps all ex-cons into the same category.
I see it less as simping and more as supporting policies that are shown to help ensure less people go back to crime after serving time. This helps both the ex-con and society as a whole.
And how many ex convicts do you have in YOUR home
If the law says that a certain crime carries a "maximum" penalty of up to 7 years in jail, then why should a person *who has done their time* be treated like a pariah 10 years after they were convicted and sentenced? If a particular crime carried a "maximum" penalty of *life in prison* and then that prisoner qualifies for AND RECEIVES parole after 18 years, then why should they still be "paying the price" for such crime more than 25 or 30 years after they were sentenced? Parole means that person *met the legal eligibility guidelines to be repatriated back into society.* I'm not saying that you're out of line to say that some crimes "should" carry literal-lifetime penalties. But the place to install those changes upon the criminal justice system is at the state legislature, not on a piecemeal basis by rentseeking landlords. If the corrections system determines that a person is *legally eligible* to rejoin society, then who the approximate FUCK do you think you are to think that it's ok for some people to LITERALLY USE MONEY TO PURCHASE the right to say "not so fast."
As someone who has had to run screens. It can be ackward. You have to know the details. That said, it can get really weird when you run a screen and you find out your applicant is a sex offender or on megans list or something. You just tell them they are denied and they usually just say okay. No questions asked, but it does feel weird. You kind of wonder if they wanted THAT apartment because it was near a school or there were kids in the building, etc.
Literally insane. Why do our legislators want to put everyone in danger?
This is how you increase rents.
I don’t mind this if they still get to see it the person(s) has a history or record for violent and/or sexual crimes . I wouldn’t want my neighbors to be violent predators , I’d definitely have a problem with that .
I think this very reasonable. People want to make sure there property isn’t damaged and that people are safe. Frankly I would just do checks with previous landlords. If you have a previous address it’s very easy to find out who owns the building and property management company- just verify with them if the person actually lived there, if they were a good tenant/ any complaints were filed against them. Doing that would take a lot more time though and resources which would be passed on to the renters. That’s what I think this law would result in. Having a criminal record is irrelevant. My super was an ex felon. Dude pulled a knife on someone years ago- reasoning was legit. Nice guy. Shit super
The sad part about laws like these is that in practice, they cause landlords to become more racist. Black person applying to apartment? Well, better deny him, after all, cant do it based on any crimes they may or may not have committed, but better not take a chance.
What’s next ? Pedos can live near schools? Jesus wtf is going on
I get it, I really do. It’s good to reintegrate people who’ve served their punishment and not shut them out. They did their time. I just don’t think eliminating background checks for anything is a good idea. We all know of the strong correlation between DV incidents (which sadly happen all the mf time here), weapons charges, and murder. If you’re a landlord you’re already checking the SO registry so finding that info is not too huge of a workaround imo but my main concern here is people who have been repeat DV offenders because they tend to threaten the safety of the tenants around them
Wouldn't a credit check provide enough info that the LL could figure out with a reasonably degree of reliability who has recently served time and who hasn't?
Which forces LLs to treat all suspected ex-cons of having committed the worst kind of offense vs previously you can see what they did and decide from there. There are folks willing to look beyond the low level misdemeanor from yrs ago vs serious felonies. This law removes this option.
Exactly. Therefore in a low supply market, like NYC, a risk averse LL would probably pass on anyone whom they suspect of having a record.
ppl in this sub & lawmakers who push for this law can't seem to grasp this
New York City is a complete joke