What Does HUD Look For On Your Background Check?
What does HUD look for on your background check? If you are applying for public housing or a Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8), you may have heard that certain requirements apply to HUD’s criminal background check. You may be concerned that you won’t be approved because of your criminal history or credit score.
The HUD criminal background check requirements are rigorous, and your local public housing authority (PHA) will enforce the strict background check policy. First, we’ll examine why you may be denied housing assistance due to HUD’s criminal background check requirements. Next, we’ll discuss PHAs and why they disqualify housing applicants. Finally, we’ll cover how HUD’s background check policy guidance protects tenants applying for housing assistance.
What Does HUD Look For On Your Background Check?
HUD – Department of Housing and Urban Development – is the federal government agency that funds housing assistance programs. These housing assistance programs are provided by state and local housing agencies called public housing authorities (PHAs).
HUD does not perform background checks. Instead, when you apply for public housing or a Housing Choice Voucher, you must agree to a background check conducted by your local public housing authority. Housing authorities set their approval criteria, varying depending on the housing authority. But no matter what housing authority you apply for, the following HUD background check rules always apply.
HUD’s background check policy will disqualify you from housing assistance programs if:
- You have been convicted of manufacturing methamphetamine in a federally funded facility.
- You’re a lifelong sex offender.
If any of these conditions apply in your case, your residence application will be automatically rejected.
What Kind Of Background Check Does HUD Do?
When you apply for housing assistance, your local public housing authority will conduct a criminal background check on you and other adults living with you. Although HUD only insists on denials for the two crimes listed above, your public housing authority will have a wide array of crimes that may be disqualifying.
Some offenses may be permanently disqualifying, others will only be relevant to your application if the conviction is within the last 3 or 5 years, for example. Your local housing authority should have a full list of disqualification offenses and timescales on their website.
Reasons Your Housing Assistance Application Could Be Denied
Depending on the PHA, applications for housing assistance may be denied due to penalties including:
- Arson
- Sale of drugs
- Rape or sexual assault
- Violent assault
- Homicide or manslaughter
- Kidnapping
- Harassment and stalking
- Domestic violence
- Firearms offenses
- Fraud
This is just a short list of common disqualification offenses. Check your local PHA’s website to find out what offenses will cause your application to be rejected. If your housing authority restricts applicants with your type of criminal offense, you will be able to see how long you will have to wait before your application is approved.
For example, a felony drug conviction can result in a 1-year ban, while a felony drug conviction can lead to a 5- or 10-year ban. Some serious offenses can result in a lifetime ban.
Does The HUD Background Check Include Your Credit Score?
Your credit score is not part of a HUD background check or a Housing Authority background check. However, if you are applying for the Housing Choice Voucher Program (Section 8 Voucher), your credit score may be part of a landlord’s rental application background check.
The Housing Choice Voucher Program provides rent assistance to tenants who rent from private landlords. Once you are approved for the program and receive your voucher, you still need to find a landlord who accepts the voucher and agrees to rent to you.
Most landlords run background checks. These rental background checks include criminal background checks, a credit report, and a rental history report. Some landlords specify a minimum credit score to be approved. They will also look at your credit payment history, rental payment history, and your history of defaults.
If you’re past due, or you’ve been evicted for non-payment, the landlord may refuse your application. So even though HUD isn’t interested in your credit score, and your local PHA doesn’t use your credit score to apply for housing assistance, the landlords you apply to may disqualify you. are if you don’t meet their standards.
How HUD Background Check Policy Guidance Protects Renters
While landlords support background checks to screen out potentially bad tenants, background checks have led to a lot of unfair discrimination in the rental market.
The Fair Housing Act does not allow landlords to discriminate against tenants based on:
- Race
- Color
- National origin
- Gender
- Disability
- Religion
- Familial status
Landlords can legally discriminate against tenants with criminal backgrounds, however, HUD says some discrimination may be illegal if it results in a disparate impact on tenants from minority communities who have Arrest and conviction rates are high.
HUD Background Check Guidance
To prevent unfair discrimination against tenants with criminal backgrounds, HUD issued Fair Housing Act guidance for public housing authorities and private landlords. This guidance prohibits the use of blanket bans on tenants with criminal convictions. This means that a landlord cannot have a rental policy that rejects all felons, for example.
When landlords reject applicants because of their criminal history, the types of offenses resulting from the rejection must be relevant to the safety of the landlord, their employees, and their other residents. Policies that exclude individuals with certain criminal convictions should distinguish between criminal conduct that constitutes a potential safety risk and criminal conduct that does not.
This means that landlords are required to perform individual criminal background checks that look at the type and age of the crime. Background check policies must also be consistently implemented. If an African-American or Hispanic applicant was denied housing for a drug conviction, but a white person with the same conviction was granted housing, the landlord would violate the Fair Housing Act.
Denial of residency cannot be based solely on an arrest record. Nor should denials be based on minor offenses such as petty theft, or unrelated offenses such as DUIs.
Hud Criminal Background Check Requirements – Key Takeaways
When you apply for housing assistance, your application will be denied if you have ever been convicted of manufacturing methamphetamine in federally funded housing or are a registered sex offender for life.
In addition to these HUD criminal background check requirements, your public housing authority may impose restrictions on other types of criminal convictions.
The most serious offenses can result in a lifetime ban, while other offenses will result in a temporary ban of up to 10 years, depending on the type of offense and housing authority policy.
