I get this is supposed to be a good thing but how will anyone know that a racist landlord wouldn't just say that the white straight able bodied candidate wasn't also the first qualified candidate? Certainly in the case of small time property owners that will be the case. Secondly, if a landlord owns (or is acting as the owners representative of a property) shouldn't they have a reasonable say who who they rent their property out to? (Or is the City planning on eminate domaining the property of violators). And who is going to follow up on complaints? Keep in mind the City has barely been able to deal with employers violating the sick leave law.

Good intentions I'm sure but the road to hell are paved in exactly that.

Expanding on @1 a bit, this law also assumes that a first-in-time rule would work to the benefit of racial minorities. I don't know that this is a well-founded assumption: it's entirely possible that the effect of this rule would be that affluent white guys who have the ability to quickly and easily submit rental applications will be given a leg up in the rental process.

I mean, what basis is there to assume that historically disadvantaged persons are going to be first in line?

@2: What would be the basis to assume that racial minorities are unable to fill out an application in a timely manner?

This is a exquisitely stupid law crafted by meddling busy-bodies who have no fucking idea about renting in the real world.
And @1 and 2 are right; clever non-disadvantaged folks will easily figure out how to game the system; as will landlords (let your preferred tenant know exactly when the unit will be 'available' so they can be waiting first in line; etc...)

Just like ObamaCare regulations destroyed the 40 hour week for the most vulnerable workers, this shitpie will end up doing far more harm than good.

>ObamaCare regulations destroyed the 40 hour week for the most vulnerable workers

wut

Employers keep hours below 30 a week to avoid ObamaCare mandates.

" union leaders, including the Teamsters, sent a withering letter in July 2013 to Democratic leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, warning that President Obama’s health reform law will “destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.”...."

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/oba…

"That assumption proved wrong. The costs of providing health insurance are staggering under the ACA: Small businesses, which are the least able to handle cost increases, report paying an average of $11,868 more per employee per year since the ACA’s passage. Large companies have also seen their costs increase. As a result, some of them have cut employee hours to avoid triggering the coverage requirement altogether. The only other choices are to cut jobs or to raise prices to cover the higher costs—an unattractive option in today’s tepid economy.

This unsettling reality is apparent everywhere you look, with countless businesses having already made similar decisions. And it’s not just limited to multinational corporations: movie theaters, grocery stores, retirement homes—they’re all having to shift employees to part-time to avoid the ACA’s steep penalties.

Nor is this only happening in the private sector. Public school systems from coast to coast have been effected. K-12 districts have limited hours for their support staff, including janitors, drivers, cafeteria workers, and teachers. As one school board member in Virginia recently put it, a substitute teacher who works five days a week has essentially been “laid off a day and half” every week once their hours get cut.

Many public universities and community colleges have made the same cuts. For Ivy Tech Community College in Carmel, Indiana—a college which President Obama visited earlier this month-- the employer mandate would have increased their health insurance costs by up to $12 million annually. Unable to afford the increases, school administrators were forced to cut the teaching hours of adjunct faculty. Miami-Dade College in Florida even instituted the same policy for which the president criticized Staples, capping part-time employees at 25 hours worked per week.

Who is being hurt by this trend? People who need every hour of work they can find......"

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/e…

@3 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article…

@4/7/8- well, given that we have historically low unemployment, are starting to see upward pressure on wages, and in some part of the country actually have a labor shortage, I think we have somehow navigated that hazard.

As a landlord, I am torn. My sole interest is finding a person who will pay rent on time and not destroy my place. I have had surprisingly difficult time finding any such renter. I made the mistake of renting below market value to allow for a bigger pool, and sought out renters with great references- Those jerks also destroyed the house. The best strategy, according to all landlords I've spoken with, is to charge absolutely every last dollar you can. This insures your renter will be working lots of hours and won't be home enough to wreck anything, and will likely sign up for autopay.

@3. What? We make this assumption all the time for extremely good reason. A landlord holds the open house from 2-4 on a Wednesday, and it requires a certain social economic standing to show up and fill out the application. This isn't a radical theory. It's our argument for extending voting.

I think this law sounds stupid. There's no inherent check against discrimination by requiring people to rent to literally the first person. Meanwhile, the "threat" to increase enforcement of anti-discrimination measures isn't much of a threat. Increasing housing enforcement is exactly what they do. They're threatening to impose good policy if their bad policy loses.

Landlords are so, so, so, so, SOOOOOOOO fucking racist. Poor, poor landlords? Not sorry for your racist asses. The absolute cornerstone of institutional racism is property owners. Suck it, landlords.

The first argument against first in time was that it would cause bad tenants to get apartments. But now you guys are here telling me that ACTUALLY the good (ahem, white) tenants will game the system or that they will be first in line anyway. If that's true, then what is your problem? You're saying it won't help minorities rent an apartment. You should be happy.

We know for a fact that people of color, single moms, and all the other kinds of people that asshole white men can't deal with, DO in fact often show up first and qualify first. And then a privileged white dude who qualified later gets picked because the landlord's "gut", we're told', liked the white dude better. That's what housing discrimination means. We know that is exactly what is happening because we know that housing discrimination exists, that it's absolutely rampant.

This law would at least help those people who were first.

If it makes the privileged white dudes have to hustle a little to come claim their privilege, well, that's something. Not a win, but it's a teeny tiny crack in the bubble of privilege that these guys spend their lives in. One of the reasons asshole white dudes are forever saying everybody else ought to be able to make it as easy as they did is they go around renting apartments that they didn't even bother applying for until three days after they heard about the vacancy. And they still got the apartment! Life is so easy! For them. They've spent their whole lives enjoying that kind of easy living and have no clue that everybody else has to scramble to be first in line even to have a small chance of renting.

So yeah, make the fuckers haul their asses out of bed and try to be the first one. I hope we get to hear their sad fucking stories. I hope there's video. I want to listen to their sad little whines, and see the sad little beads of sweat on their privileged little brows.

But shouldn't landlords have a say in who they rent to? Sure. They do have a say. They get to make up the qualifications. Then publish them. Then accept the first person who meets the qualifications. THEIR qualifications. The qualifications that the LANDLORD CHOSE. But, oh, you can't write down in words the criteria your all-knowing "gut" uses to pick tenants? Why can't you? Just to fucking stupid to write down what those criteria are? Could it be you're a fucking moron? Probably just too fucking stupid to even notice how racist your "gut" is. What your gut needs is to eat more fiber have some shut the fuck up with it.

Could be the problem is too many landlords are just morons. News flash, conservative babies: life is not fair. Lots of lazy shiftless morons find themselves as king shit owners of valuable property. If you can't believe that, it's because you're stuck assuming life is fair, you big baby. A hell of a lot of property is inherited, and inheritance is one of the top ways that fucking morons get put into positions of wealth and power they are totally unqualified for.

But they're too stupid to even realize they were born on third base. Too stupid to realize their racist "gut" is not worth jack shit. Life is not fair, babies. That's why we need laws like this.

@15 In need of the next extreme protection order. Probably shouldn't let him drive a car either, or use an escalator. A phone might also be too complex. Don't poke your eye out with a fork by accident.

Your ~class war~ on those who actually have to earn things in life and don’t get shit when their parents croak is entirely predicated upon the antithesis of equality.

Just like the Nazis.

The aforementioned wretch, after donning his cloak of white superiority, believes that the statement “may the best man win” is something that comes from the white supremacist journals he reads.

It’s just that you actually fucking suck. Not you and a whole bunch of other people, you with your given name.

You fucking suck.

- some big baby who had qualified for social security by the age of 26.

Landlords are racist, though, aren't they? And half of them are drooling idiots, aren't they? Have you not ever met an actual landlord?

Hey, you don't need to have met any. Google Suzie Burke. Settle in and read a while. Then come back and tell me you think people accumulate property because they are honest, and clever, and diligent.

It's not an accident that Donald Trump is from real estate.

@19. Says the guy who has no job, no belongings, no direction, no purpose. Who life has been “so unfair” to. Haha.

You’re one of the bottom feeders whose sole interest in tearing down a system lies in the possibility that if the deck gets reshuffled somehow, you might end up in a slightly better social and economic position than you’re in now.

Good luck with your 24 hour a day “life’s not fair” lifetime movie marathon. Loser.

I applaud the intentions, but the chances of victory and then of significantly moving the bar on housing equality is close to nil. This is perhaps good politics, but a poor allocation of resources.

My landlord is an 80-something Japanese lady.

There are a bunch of girls upstairs.

The.Author.Of.This.Article.Can.Not.Look.At.Her.Bills.Because.She.Will.Not.Live.Within.Her.Means.

Much of the tenant-picking work for many landlords, including myself, is now done by AI. We use an automated system that requires potential renters to submit applications online and it automatically ranks them based on credit rating, income:rent ratio and timeliness of application. We have zero interest or ability to have information around protected classes, etc. This is not what I would consider a solution...but I just thought you all should know that this is totally a thing.

So many off the wall personal attacks, pulled straight out of your ass. You literally have no idea at all who I am and you think making up a bunch of shit somehow makes a point of some kind. Listen to yourself. It's called "flailing". You guys are flailing. It sounds kind of like "failing". Which you're also doing.

I'm surprised at muffy. I thought you were pretending to be something other than a troll?

The evidence of discrimination is so blatant that you don't even need to start talking about subtle questions like implicit bias. Just mail out identical applications and put African-American sounding names on half of them. The result is glaringly obvious. Do the same with female and male names, or Hispanic sounding names. Landlords are racist. "Gut" feelings are pure prejudice.

All they have to do is write down what qualities these "gut" feelings consist of. Write it down. Advertise that whatever this quality is, you have to have it to rent the place. These racist, drooling moron landlords are paying lawyers to battle this law all the way to the state supreme court because writing that down is TOO HARD FOR THEM. Or too incriminating.

AI sounds great. Like after you buy something your Facebook feed is filled with ads for the thing you just bought. It's like Skynet, but retarded. But anyway, if your tenants can be ranked by an algorithm, then you can write down and publish your rental criteria. It's an easy law to comply with if you're not discriminating.

No dude. You’ve actually told me that “may the best man win” sounds like something off of stormfront.

You’ve also freaked the fuck out and written an essay about the conservatives from myballard and whatever other shit when I said I’ve been homeless before.

Heidi wrote in her advice column that she can’t look at her bills because she cannot pay them.

IRONY?

I’m actually quite certain I’ve reduced you to tears on more than one occasion.

No one is saying bias does not exist. You truly are a wretched being, though.

1. I rent from humans, not from corporations.
2. The local hook.
3. You’re all arguing that only white men are trustworthy, which makes it sound like an absolute fucking miracle that the majority of humanity is housed.

Don’t worry kiddos, other than those unpayable loans you’ve saddled yourself with(no pity) items drop off of your credit rating after seven years.

In all honesty I’m pretty certain the majority of my landlords have not been white males.

Fucking incredible, isn’t it?

For the record, I'm white, have been a landlord and had only had Asian or Middle Eastern tenants. All were great. My bias was more about where they worked, not race.

Great more wasted Tax dollars..

"I said I’ve been homeless before."

And I totally ignored you! Because you're obviously full of shit. You say seriously delusional things, like say, for example, "I’m actually quite certain I’ve reduced you to tears on more than one occasion." That's the raving of someone having hallucinations. Or, "You’re all arguing that only white men are trustworthy", which is just bad reading comprehension.

RicketyRick claims to be a landlord -- and we can believe it right! And then he tells us how unbiased he is. And saying it makes it true because landlords don't discriminate and then lie about it. They wouldn't!

You guys are classic internet flame warriors. "Do you even lift bro!" Next thing you'll be saying "I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids!!!" Lying about yourself and pulling imaginary facts about me straight out of your ass is nothing but comedy gold. You know the Navy Seal Copypasta is a popular meme because it's so fucking funny.

Trying to prove the paranoid, reactionary opinions of a typical old man nimby with his radio nailed on the Dori Monson show by bragging about how you've been homeless and you've been a landlord and you're a small business owner and so on is the "I have over 300 confirmed kills" of laughable bullshit.

Did you guys go read up on Suzie Burke? Instead of pretending you're something you're not or pretending you know something about me, why don't you try to prove that Suzie Burke, a very typical Seattle land baron who stumbled into a position of great power over the lives of several thousand far better human beings than she, is not a batshit crazy drooling moron. Real estate accumulates into the hands of some of the worst people. Hugh Sisley. There's a piece of work for you. These real estate empires might have been "earned" by grifters like your Yeslers and Dennys who you could at least grant had a kind of vicious cunning. But their descendants who had all that unearned wealth handed to them? Disgusting excuses for human beings, most of them. The ones with a shred of common decency were swindled out of their holdings long ago, or sold out and ran screaming from the snake pit of landowners they were born into.

Instead of posting any more jokes of the "Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps" variety, why don't you grab ahold of some facts about the landowners around here. Prove me wrong.

Or post some more made up shit. It's funny. We will all laugh at you. Proceed.

Then what is bothering you so much? Ignore the crazy person.

You know the first in time ordinance passed 8-0 right? And the Mayor and City Attorney are all for it. I guess they're genuinely mentally ill too. Everybody is mentally ill. Totally plausible scenario.

Could be the common denominator is you.

Top criteria: People who scream "Landlords are so, so, so, so, SOOOOOOOO fucking racist." automatically disqualified from renting a vacant unit.

What? Are you trying to tell us your real name?"One of me is at ofimport.net". One what of you? How many of you are there? Are you the Peter Pan silhouette? Are you Zach? Are you one of the snowmen? Is this supposed to be a picture of your apartment? Is this picture of an apartment proof that you were homeless? "You can find a few others from there." I can find a few other what? Snowman scarves? Lawn furniture? What are you saying?

If you want to post under your real name, then post under your real name. As far as I can tell, you're anonymous. You're posting links to random sites and saying random words.

Anyways, ofimport.net is a creepy website. Plays music on the home page like a Web 1.0 site your aunt made about kumquats because the example in her For Dummies book was all kumquats. French and Arabic translate links are just Google Translate. One out of four stars. Would not browse again.