Attn: Cook County Landlords - No Blanket Criminal History Denials

[Matthew Olszak]

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-housing-ordinance-arrest-record-20190425-story.html

https://www.chicagobusiness.com/commercial-real-estate/apartment-landlords-gripe-over-cook-county-housing-discrimination-proposal

So this was rammed on through the county board today here in Cook County Illinois (Chicago). From the info I've gathered, landlords can no longer have "blanket" policies on criminal history - no more saying any positive result is an automatic fail. And supposedly, you can't even pull criminal history until the tenant is otherwise approved, which is intended to prevent "finding" a reason to deny otherwise. There are still rules that need to be developed, but based on this being in Cook County, I highly doubt those rules will favor landlords in any way.

Now on to my opinion soapbox. Folks, stop with blanket policies on credit, background, etc. You are needlessly giving ammo to legislators in our semi-socialist jurisdictions to contort to argue their cause. IE take for instance a blanket policy of no criminal history, ever. An applicant has a trespassing charge from when they were 18, 23 years ago. So per your policy, you deny, even though that history has no real reflection on this person now as a tenant. These activists use those ridiculous cases to flip the script and create what I'll call "blanket legislation". Instead of saying, "Lets make a law that certain crimes after a certain time are excluded", they use it as a poster child to further their agenda to prevent ALL background checks.