Lawmakers didn’t get the message last year when tenants and building owners rejected the New York City Council’s proposed bill that would have prevented landlords from performing basic criminal background checks on prospective renters. What is criminal is the council’s resuscitation of Int. 632, a bill that would eliminate the most important means of ensuring that a child molester, domestic abuser or drug dealer isn’t moving next door to a family with three kids, a single 30-something-year-old or an elderly grandmother.
Of course everyone deserves a second chance, but not at the expense of the safety and security of others. A background check that identifies past illegal behavior doesn’t need to automatically disqualify a prospective tenant, but not requiring one at all is as reckless as it is dangerous. It puts existing tenants at risk, exposes building owners and managers to liability, and rips apart the sense of home as a safe haven from a city that has become increasingly lawless.
Put simply, the ability to perform a criminal background check on a prospective tenant is a necessary practice in both the rental housing industry and for homebuyers. It’s incredibly hypocritical for lawmakers to pass the burden of background checks to private owners, when virtually all other government-subsidized housing in New York City requires criminal background checks.
It is one of the few times that owners and renters agree, as we saw when former Councilmember Stephen Levin — the bill’s original author who represented Brownstone Brooklyn and Williamsburg — tried to ram through this legislation on his way out the door late last year. Despite initially having enough sponsors to ensure passage, it ultimately died on the vine once councilmembers withdrew their support after widespread backlash from their diverse constituents.
As if simply introducing this bill wasn’t offensive enough — some councilmembers are proponents of background checks on prospective co-op and condo owners, as though their safety is somehow worth more than the safety of renters. That alone should convince everyone how poorly thought out this preposterous effort is.
Existing renters, our family and friends, rely on building owners to use good judgment when considering someone for tenancy. Most everyone agrees that those who have committed minor offenses — and maybe even a more serious crime long ago — deserve the benefit of a second chance. But it is the legal and moral responsibility of building owners to ensure that apartments are rented to other tenants who will not jeopardize the safety, health and wellbeing of existing tenants and their community.
Councilmembers are selling their constituents a bill of goods — calling their second attempt at this ill-proposed legislation a fight against housing discrimination and for fairness. In reality, they are abandoning tenant safety and embracing unfairness, just as other lawmakers in all levels of government in Democratically-controlled bodies have abandoned overall public safety.
Alleged housing discrimination is not why the homeless population continues to surge. Decades of failed housing policy by Albany lawmakers and the New York City Council is the culprit. The ability to screen prospective tenants for a criminal background is not why our commutes are more dangerous, ATM vestibules more threatening, streets more like the Wild West and playgrounds more like shooting galleries. Eliminating background checks is just another smokescreen to distract from decisions based on politics instead of needs.
Councilmembers are ignoring basic common sense. The risk of repeat offenses of major crimes is too high; the evidence screams out in daily headlines — recidivist criminals arrested and cut loose by judges, only to re-offend.
Meanwhile, as the council invests its time in a dangerous bill already defeated by constituents, the city’s voucher programs for income-insecure tenants are in complete shambles. The crucial J-51 exemption and abatement program — a property tax exemption for renovating residential apartment buildings — expired in June, and a broken property tax system that favors wealthy townhouse owners at the expense of tenants, single-family and apartment building owners continues to be ignored.
The City Council would better serve New Yorkers by educating tenants about available subsidies like rent increase exemptions for seniors and the disabled, rent vouchers for low income tenants and vouchers that connect homeless families with apartments. Here’s a novel idea that the entire council should be supporting: a bill that would consolidate these programs, invest in outreach initiatives for tenants and owners, and get homeless families housed and the mental health care they need.
In resuscitating the bill that would prohibit background checks, the City Council is acting as if last year’s public uproar never happened — just another example of the tunnel vision, politics-over-policy mindset that ignores the voices and needs of New Yorkers.
Joseph Strasburg is president of the Rent Stabilization Association, which represents 25,000 diverse owners and managers of more than 1 million apartments.
