And nobody is going to give me a chance because of that one mistake on my record.” “I am kind of just marked, for what feels like years. That means even if an eviction was filed unlawfully-say, in retaliation against someone requesting repairs or against a victim of domestic violence-and a judge dismisses the case, a future landlord can see that a tenant was sued for eviction and use that as a basis to deny their application. The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act allows tenant screening companies to access and report eviction court records for up to seven years, which means long after someone has moved out and gotten a new job or otherwise started to rebuild their financial life, an eviction will continue to haunt them.īut while most landlords will deny a prospective tenant if they see an eviction on their record, many don’t distinguish between an eviction filing and an eviction judgment. In Texas, tenants who are evicted-because they cannot pay rent, because they don’t show up to court, or because they don’t know their rights-have little recourse when it comes to clearing their rental history. A record of an eviction is usually enough to flag an application for denial. Some reports include detailed information about a renter’s history others provide a ranking, or simply recommend a landlord accept or deny an application. These companies produce automated reports about a prospective renter by aggregating criminal and civil court records with credit history and other publicly available data. When someone applies for an apartment, a landlord usually runs a background check through one of hundreds of private tenant screening companies. And nobody is going to want to give me a chance because of that one mistake on my record.” I am kind of just marked, for what feels like years. “I had all that money and I couldn’t even get a room in a house,” they say. Census Bureau and saved up nearly $2,000, including the $317 Uber eventually offered Perales in sick pay, but they still couldn’t find a place to live. They eventually started working for the U.S. So Perales moved out of their room and began living in their car. As the pandemic spread across Texas, some cities passed eviction moratoriums intended to keep people like Perales sheltered-but those protections didn’t extend to motels. Amid a national shortage of COVID-19 tests, they couldn’t get tested for the coronavirus, so they couldn’t qualify for sick pay from their employer, Uber, and their account was suspended. In mid-March, Perales started to cough and feel feverish. “Like some sort of blacklist that I don’t know about.” In February, they moved into an extended-stay motel in Arlington. “The landlord must have put my name somewhere else or something, like a blacklist,” they say. Since then, Perales has applied at hundreds of places-apartments, second-chance housing, rooms for rent-only to be denied. Last year, Jona Perales was evicted from an apartment they shared with their stepdad in southwest Dallas after failing to pay rent. Screened out by automated background checks, tenants who face eviction can be denied housing for years to come.
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