Texas Housers has issued its comment on HUD’s Proposed Rule “Reducing Barriers to HUD-Assisted Housing.” The proposed rule intends to update HUD’s tenant screening regulations to confer additional fairness and protections against unnecessary denials for individuals with histories of involvement with the criminal-legal system.
Often, there are unnecessary barriers to accessing housing for people impacted by the criminal-legal system, and HUD is working to reduce those barriers for certain forms of HUD-assisted housing through this proposed rule.
Some of the notable regulatory changes included in the proposed rule are:
- Clarifying what types of criminal activity that PHAs and owners can screen for
- Limiting the lookback period in which criminal activity may be considered in an admissions decision for no more than 3 years before an application
- Require individualized assessments of rental applicants with a conviction history in admissions decisions, with a consideration of mitigating factors and other circumstances
- Allows an applicant who is denied based on their conviction ability the ability to dispute the record used
- Restrict the use of arrest records and ban the use of arrest records as the sole basis for a housing admissions denial or an eviction
- Better regulate third party screening services and companies
We would like to thank all of our organizational partners and community members who gave valuable insight which informed and strengthened our comments, in particular NLIHC and Pure Justice, for allowing us to retrieve feedback on the proposed rule during their June monthly meeting.
See our comments below:
