John Blake, Tzedek DC Staff Attorney and UDC Law alum, recently testified to the DC Council in support of the Eviction Record Sealing Authority Amendment Act of 2019 on behalf of Tzedek DC and the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of Greater Washington.
The proposed bill would protect DC residents from being denied rental housing on the basis of past evictions by automatically sealing eviction records or removing them from the residents’ record after three years and by prohibiting discrimination in housing based on a person having a sealed eviction record. DC residents with black marks on their record from eviction suits have greater difficulty finding rental housing. Some residents are unaware of eviction filings on their record, assuming that moving out or paying their rent back after the filing was made would settle the issue. Even in cases where an eviction was baseless or made in error, these eviction reports can still show up in public record searches or on specialty consumer reports used by housing providers to screen tenants for rental housing.
Enacting the types of protections reflected in the bill could provide relief to those facing financial hardships created by the COVID-19 pandemic or other factors and, as the testimony noted, would “have a direct impact on our clients’ ability to continue to live in the District.” Once the currently operative emergency moratoria on eviction and debt collection lawsuits end in 2021, the bill’s protections can help ensure that vulnerable DC residents can continue to reside in DC without negative housing records ruining their chances of finding rental housing while they begin the process of financial recovery.
Councilmember Mary Cheh, who introduced the bill, said, “Eviction records can and do have a lasting, dramatic impact on a tenant’s ability to find housing.... As you can imagine, the harm caused by these permanent records is particularly acute for low-income residents and those who have experienced homelessness." Councilmembers Charles Allen, Anita Bonds, Brandon Todd, Brianne Nadeau, Elissa Silverman, and David Grosso co-introduced the bill.
John Blake recently joined Tzedek DC after several years of practicing in the Economic Security Unit as a Westwood Fellow at Neighborhood Legal Services Project. Mr. Blake is a 2018 magna cum laude graduate of the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law, where Tzedek DC is headquartered and where he gained experience as a Student Attorney in the Housing and Consumer Law Clinic.
Click here to read the full testimony, and click here to read the Supplemental Written Submission.
