How Discourse about Tenant Eligibility in Seattle Rental Listings Has Evolved with Tenant Screening Regulations

• In Event: 1264 - Persistent and Evolving Patterns of Discrimination in the Housing Market

Abstract

Facing severe affordable housing shortages, Seattle is one of many cities employing regulatory remedies to expand housing access. During our case study in Seattle, the City Council passed two ordinances regulating how property owners and managers (POMs) select tenants, requiring POMs to rent an available home to the first qualified applicant (First in Time, or FiT), and limiting POMs’ ability to reject applicants based on a criminal record (CRO). To assess some of the possible consequences of these ordinances, we analyze recent Seattle rental advertisements (“ads”), asking whether and how the use and meaning of language around criminal histories evolves over time with new regulations. We use Seattle Craigslist ads from March 2017-September 2018, tract-level American Community Survey data for 2012-2016, and new quantitative and established qualitative methods of text analysis that reveal topic prevalence and meaning. As a result, we find evidence of Seattle-specific trends in the usage of restrictive language about tenant eligibility that correspond to the implementation of FiT and CRO, and the subsequent repeal of FiT. In Seattle, tenant eligibility restrictions become both more common and stricter when FiT goes into effect, then become less common when FiT is repealed. At the same time, mentions of criminal records seem to decline around the implementation of CRO, while the overall presence of restrictions seems to increase. A higher prevalence of restrictions following the implementation of FiT is also present outside of Seattle, but we see no other trends in this area that correspond to regulatory timing. Overall, our findings tentatively suggest that POMs may adapt the language in their rental advertisements to maintain control over tenant selection when necessary (i.e., when their control over tenant selection is limited). And, contrary to the spirit of fair housing legislation, this could make rental housing less accessible.

Authors

• Erin Carll, University of Washington

• Ian Kennedy, University of Washington

• Christian L. Hess, University of Washington

• Kyle Crowder, University of Washington

• Jerald R. Herting, University of Washington

• Adam Kirstein, Columbia University