A California county has passed an ordinance that will ban landlords from conducting criminal background checks on prospective tenants, a move made in an effort to make it easier to get housing and curb discrimination.
The Alameda County Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 Tuesday to adopt a Fair Chance housing ordinance. One member abstained.
The ordinance is part of a package of tenant protection bills.
The measure will prohibit both private and public landlords from requiring applicants to disclose arrests or convictions. It also bans advertising that discourages people with criminal histories from applying for housing.
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An aerial view Oakland, California, in Alameda County. County leaders this week passed a measure to ban landlords from conducting criminal background checks for prospective tenants.
(Reuters/Stephen Lam)
The ordinance applies to most residential units in the unincorporated communities of Ashland, Castro Valley, Cherryland, Fairview, San Lorenzo and Sunol, Fox San Francisco reported. It comes as the Bay Area faces skyrocketing housing costs and a homelessness crisis.
The California Apartment Association criticized the move, saying Alameda County needs more units, not “more bureaucracy and more laws.”
“Rather than focus on building affordable homes and lifting its eviction moratorium, the county is wasting time by adopting new limits on a landlord’s ability to protect the rights of their tenants and provide quality housing,” the group said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“Before placing new regulations on housing providers, the Board of Supervisors must lift the COVID era eviction moratorium which invites tenants to not pay their rent even if they never suffered a COVID related hardship,” the statement continued. “Alameda County should follow other cities across the state and end it’s outdated and legally questionable eviction moratorium rather than waste time on policies that won’t truly solve our housing crisis.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to backers of the ordinance as well.
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The new law will take effect once the county’s pandemic eviction moratorium expires at the end of April.
