This is a tough one. Feelz is, after all, realz.

SLOGGER Poll: Would you have your current unit if the "first-in-time" rule were not in place?

I get this need/want to use "gut-instinct" as a filter to suss out bad tenants. Similar to the way some dogs automatically "know" when a bad person is at your door with mal-intent.

But "gut-instinct" is also culturally conditioned... so a landlord's 'instincts' about someone of a different ethnicity may be wildly incorrect, and lead to racist discrimination. Thus the law.

So I get the landlords'/PLF's/RHA's position. BUT instead of just seeking to knock the law down... why don't they come to the table with a better solution?

You know, in the spirit of cooperation and mutual consent. I'm sure landlords don't want to discriminate. How do they propose not doing that?

I have a plan to resolve this and make some heads explode real good. Landlords can cite creepy feelings against white guys, but nobody else. Bring on the heads.

@4 I no longer have rental properties, but when I did, white guys in their 20-30's were always at the bottom of my list of potential renters. They were always far more likely to create headaches for me. No one wants to have some aging frat guy living in their rental unit.

@4: Yes, in the spirit of mutual consent, the law isn't needed - hence no need for a "better solution."

You'll never really know what the gut instinct is, or whether it's been seasoned with "cultural conditioning" -- so you'll just have to deal with the ambiguity.

I know, that drives libs crazy. It shouldn't though.

@5 It was a black family that destroyed one of the apartments in our building. The property management company had to replace all the appliances (that were less than a year old to begin with) and replace the carpet.

I you use race than I'm using race.

Don't get caught up in the "gut instinct" angle. It's about assuming landlords will discriminate if given the opportunity. First-in-time removes the landlords right to select a tenant based on non-discriminatory legal criteria. The problem is the city council governs based on their beliefs and opinions. Generally
research and studies they use are mis-represented and/or written by advocates who support the councils opinions and beliefs. Their processes lack transparency, are ethically questionable at times, and definitely are examples of bad governance. A recent example of well written analysis of bad governance can be found at www.sccinight.com 2/20/18. "The City Council paid a lobbyist $50,000 for the income tax ordinance, and other revelations".

@9 Great! You must first have read the minds of any possible applicants that might walk through your door, predicted that one would come wearing a Confederate flag shirt, have stated that up front in your screening criteria and posted it in your For Rent advertisement. Otherwise, sorry sucker. You lose and must rent to that person - as long as they meet your minimum income/credit criteria. No criminal records check! They deserve housing too!!

@9 You are screwed, political Ideology is a protected class in Seattle, really.

My gut tells me landlords don't like minorities.

@13 Why would you assume that?

I wonder why nobody worries that "first come first serve" rule could itself be biased. Imagine the scenario: we have a single white tech worker with flexible hours and a single mom of color who has to put in 9-5 in an office downtown. Say they both have good credit and enough income to qualify. An apartment listing pops up on Craigslist at 11 AM on a Tuesday. By law, the landlord must rent to the applicant who gets there first. Is that really a colorblind rule?

@15.. at the risk of being called fake news... http://kuow.org/post/rental-discriminati…

When orchestra hiring practices are corrected for gender bias (aka "gut check") by having players audition behind screens, guess what? Surprise! The percentage of women hires increases dramatically.
Gut check, my ass. I look forward to this being soundly defeated in court.

>The law is an “unprecedented attempt to regulate subconscious thought,”

fucking A. Landlords have the right to discretion over who will occupy the properties they own. They're assets that need to be taken care of.

Landlords should have a right to choose who they rent to. They take all the risk and have to be able to rent to a person who they can communicate with and who they feel will take care of the rental.

@17. Interesting you bring up SOCR testing. I pulled a public records request on the 2015 discrimination testing. The majority of the cases it is a small technical thing like a manager did not offer the exact same information over the phone. Or, one guy was flagged because he stuttered before affirming that small children were ok and he offered that the apartment may be too small. Here is my favorite. The Seattle Office of Civil Rights and the seattle city council published and represented the test properties were chosen by random sampling (so a person would assume the results might be indicative throughout the city). Wrong. The contract given to the testing contractor specifically stated it was to use targeted sampling including recommendations of specific properties, and tips on specific properties to sample. After reviewing the individual cases it seemed clear that certain properties, owners and mgt companies were targeted. The point being they lied when representing the data and used those lies to push their new renters ordinances to the public. And it's not an isolated , they are really sloppy and don't think people will notice. Maybe they assume correctly.

Scientists know they need to actively correct for their biases, always. The idea that people who are hiring or renting are not biased because they think they aren't or even because they don't wish to be biased, seems... unlikely. See orchestra hiring above. I believe there should be some active mechanism, this or something else, to correct for biases in hiring and housing. Especially since people insist so loudly that it's all about hiring the best person for the job.

@12 Nazis deserve housing too according to the Seattle City Council, no matter how antisocial, threatening, Trump supporting, alt-right they may be. Landlords' hands are really tied as to how much inquiry they are allowed to do. The more subjective the screening criteria, even if it has virtuous intent, the more risk landlords are exposing themselves to in terms of an OCR complaint/investigation/fines/criminal penalties.

Nope. No "gut feelings." Check out the Fair Housing Justice Center. Landlords discriminate ALL OF THE TIME. Every single case this organization has taken to court, they have won. EVERY SINGLE CASE. This is just landlords wanting to get away with discriminating - and let's be really clear, they can still get away with it, it will take someone to notice, catch them in the act, document it, and press charges. Anyone wanting to be able to go with their gut feelings when a prospective tenant qualifies to rent the apartment wants permission to discriminate. Period. The answer to this should be no, every damn time. Seattle has gotten away with discriminating against tenants for decades and now is the time for it to stop.

2CV @14 has the correct answer.

why dont they just make it apply to owers with 5 units or more? that way individuals still get their freedom of choice, and corporate landlords have to comply. if i rented out a duplex, i would want 100% control over who shares a wall and roof with me. that seems hard to argue with.
2CV on February 23, 2018 at 4:11 PM

@22... I was kind enough to link an article... you pulled some records? ... any links?

It's really amazing how many bougie ass folks read the stranger. Housing is a human right, which you have no right to extract profit from. Plenty of other games to run if you're so worried about brown people ruining your carpet.

@31: No, housing isn't a human right no more than food is a human right. Nobody has to provide free food for you, nobody has to provide free housing for you (regardless of your race).

@31 Bad tenants (as in people who destroy your property, don't pay rent on time, refuse to follow basic rules of hygiene) are a real thing. Landlords have the right to protect themselves from such tenants.

Case in point: I knew a white gay guy who had a major meth habit that did not lead to him cleaning. His place had paths running between literal piles of garbage, not to mention used syringes left everywhere. He'd spent time being homeless and was nuts from drug use, which he refused to stop. Would you accept someone like that as a neighbor? What do you propose be done in that case?

Honestly, if I owned rental property, I would outsource everything to a property management company just to protect myself from exactly these kinds of headaches.

@31. Whose housing do people have a right to?

Same of the commenters have said that there needs to be a law in place to stop discrimination and we already have laws in place that make discrimination illegal. This is a redundant law that goes overboard with the control the government wants over personal property rights.

Beware of unintentional consequences. If landlords are forced to take the "first qualified applicant" then the qualifications will get tougher and tougher. Expect to see 3 or 4x rent to monthly income. Expect to see credit score requirements of 700 or above. Expect that tenants will have to have a major credit card, supply 3 or 4 references instead of just one or two, and have 2 or 3 or more years on the job to qualify.

Given the political makeup of Seattle, I assume there are some landlords exercising a little Affirmative Action in there rentals; actively seeking good minority tenants in their too-white buildings. The first-in-time law makes that unlawful when that good tenant didn’t show up first.

I hate the hypocrisy, the person with the single family home and an Accessory Dwelling Unit and Detached Accessory Dwelling Unit (3 housing units) gets different rules than the owner occupied triplex (3 housing units). I just want the same rules to apply to all landlords.

In a study cardiologists who evaluated patients complaining of chest pains did a relatively poor job of deciding who to observe and who to send home. This is after 8 years of med school, then residency, etc.

However those that follow a checklist protocol rather than their gut had a much higher success rate. They send more folks home, yet do a better job of identifying those at serious risk. I doubt that a landlord's gut check amounts to more than opportunity for inherent bias.

@31- What line of work are you in? Do you provide something people need? If so, how dare you ask to get paid for it?

@31 @39 Asking would be landlords to expect no return on investment would require tens of thousands of rich altruists to materialize out of thin air. That would be a good thing, just highly improbable.

@29. I have documents. How can I contact you?

Heidi - Can you explain this, please:

Merf Ehman, executive director of Columbia Legal Services, told me last year. "How do we get at that?"

But landlords say the rule is too restrictive. In a lawsuit brought by the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation, a handful of local landlords argue they should have discretion to determine whom to rent to.

Specifically, why did you not preface Columbia Legal Services with the descriptive "liberal" as you added "conservative" before Pacific Legal Foundation? Should we automatically assume that unless otherwise noted, every group you quote has a liberal bias?

This is how the paid-off politicians can get rid of the rental housing available in a city. Good job! If I owned rental property I'd sell it right now. You can't make a person rent their prized asset to a scumbag. It's not fair and it's not right. EFF YOU political class and all the whining losers who can't get anywhere in life without cheating.

@45 No, there is no evidence yet, since the law is relatively new. There was some talk when the law passed about doing a study after one year to see how implementation was going, but I'm still trying to figure out if that will actually happen. (It's also hard to imagine a city study really being very meaningful in this case.)
@46 That's a fair criticism. I figured most readers would be familiar with CLS and the type of work they do, while not as many would know PLF, so it was an attempt to contextualize. But I'll keep this in mind.

The irony is that by taking the decision out of landlords' hands, landlords will respond by raising rents and/or hiring management companies to cover their asses. The era of "this unit needs occasional maintenance, and I will give you low rent if you can fix the little things and not call me all the time" is over.

@12 people are people, or they ain't. even if they're detestable people.

@24 the idea that you can selectively decide who deserves... well, rights, is ultra troubling. That essentially makes *you* a nazi / fascist, as you seem to think you reserve the rights to deny rights from others. Gut check: Someone might decide that you are the disfavored class for some "obvious" reason (like, i dunno, you're African and obviously a sub-human race that doesn't have feelings and can't feel pain, or something. You can make it about "choices" if you like, but, hey, look, some people "choose" to have homosexual sex, or "choose" to have abortions, I guess there's nothing stopping us from legally discriminating against them now!).

The more I think about it... i think you're just too stupid to have opinions on public policy. You're incapable of considering the values of someone who isn't like yourself. That's too bad - go to college, broaden your perspective or something.

@51 while the person you are arguing with seems unreasonable and should just accept that hateful people should be allowed to live their sad little lives you are going way overboard with your criticism. I havent heard a lot of people call Germany a nazi country since they were one and they have laws that ban spreading hate speech, having any Nazi symbols etc. So are they nazis for taking these rights away? There is a difference between inherently bad and hateful ideologies like fascism/nazism and other ideologies that you may disagree with but aren't inherently harmful. The main reason I believe we should protect the speech of Nazis in this country is that doing otherwise could lead to radicalization and oppression of other groups. But if I could wave a magic wand and never allow anyone to say anything racist or fascist I don't see the problem. Comparing GermanSausage to a fascist is just as dumb as you were accusing them of being.

@48 The Ordinance was written mandating an evaluation by the City Auditor after 18 months of implementation.
@51 " Gut Check" was a statement by the Judge, as a landlord it is not a term I would use because folks will assume that is the predominant reason to accept or reject an applicant. A landlord is required by law not to discriminate. In the absence of discrimination an eating establishment has the right not to serve someone, a taxi can refuse a patron, a store can refuse to sell. Absent discrimination why should housing be any different? Seattle determined I might have an unconscious bias. The reality is landlords with a few units to rent, you know, the affordable rents, just got restrictive with their screening criteria. It's amazing how easy it is to find new tenants by asking your current tenants if they know anyone and it's within the law. With First-in-time, criminal records ordinance, no proof of continuing income, and CM Sawant's upcoming renter relocation bill, why take a chance on someone? The people with best credit get the apartment. Sorry, talk to your Council Member, they don't listen to us.

Dear Sawant SJW's. Every feel-good measure, every idiotic law like this, every tax increase - gets passed on to the renter as a higher cost or higher barrier to entry. Go ahead and call us "money grubbing rich landlords", your innusion could not be further from the truth. We worked hard for these properties, worked extra jobs, gave up fancy new $1000 iPhones and new cars. WE work with our tenants of all races and income levels. All we ask are three things:
1 - pay the rent on time
2 - take car of the place and inform us of any problem
3 - be respectful of your neighbors.

In return we give a residence that is clean, well maintained, and fully functional. Small repairs we will take care of typically the same day. We had a water heater go out that took three days to fix; we put up our tenants in a local hotel.

Now we have to be much more selective and use strictly word-of-mouth and/or stricter income/credit/work history criteria. Sorry, Millenials - this is the real world and business 101. When you outgrow your Sawant SJW feelz and join the rest of the adult world you will soon realize this.

They can still go with their gut, as long as those gut instincts are legally applicable criteria backed up with data from your standard background check.

The "gut feeling" landlords get when black people apply? Not legal.

Cry me a river.

Based on my own experiences before her, Parisien is corrupt. Always file for prejudice if you get her. As a former property manager for one of the largest landlords in Seattle, gut means nothing. We had renters in med school or working for major corporations. They passed all of our criteria for background checks, credit checks, and many interviewed well even though it wasn't a requirement.

They were also our most problematic tenants - blocking stairwells, trashing their units, failing to report repairs and pest issues. My favorite will always be the WASP med student who used to get drunk every weekend and lock himself out. Gut instincts, my little allegedly corrupt judge, are fueled by stereotypes. There is no way to know what type of tenant someone will be.