Backgrounds not that tough

One of the things made evident in the Lincoln Journal Star series running this week, The Core, is that when a lot of problematic tenants get concentrated in a small area (such as a single apartment building or a small neighborhood), the sum is greater than the whole. When a critical mass of trouble-makers is reached, it drives the good people away, and the place spirals downward. This is exactly what happened at 1520 D Street.

All neighborhoods have their characters, and there is a certain "carrying capacity" in the environment for a few chaotic individuals or households. But when the bad actors start to effect those around them to the extent that the quality of life is significantly diminished, good tenants are suddenly looking for a new place at the end of the lease.

One solution rests with landlords. When you're occupancy rate is pushing 20% it's hard to turn down a tenant who can make the damage deposit and pay the first months rent. That might seem better than nothing, even if he or she isn't exactly an upstanding citizen. If you look at our maps of people with arrest warrants, people on parole, and registered sex offenders, the concentration in The Core is very obvious. Obviously, everyone's got to live someplace. I'm not saying you shouldn't rent to an ex-con, a registered sex offender, or a person with an active arrest warrant. But you might want to know the details, ask a few more questions, and weigh the gravity of the tenant's past conduct before you seal the deal. There is a world of difference between someone who spent a couple of years in the pen for burglary in the 1990's, and someone who is still plying their drug trade despite dozens of arrests and convictions. Some landlords do a great job with this, some are asleep at the wheel.

Landlords really need to take advantage of the easy and instant checks at their disposal, and avoid renting to the worst characters. It protects them, because the really bad tenants are eventually going to put them through the purgatory of eviction anyway, and in the process, the neighbor-from-Hades will scare off their better renters. We make available some very good resources for landlords to do simple backgrounds, at little or no cost. These resources are highlighted front-and-center on our public home page. I also have a guide to criminal history checks posted that provides practical advice on how to do a background in a logical order that minimizes expense.

In a matter of five minutes from any Internet connected computer, you can determine if the prospective tenant is a high risk registered sex offender, has served time in prison for a felony, has been convicted of a crime in a prosecution by the Lancaster County Attorney, or is currently the subject of an arrest warrant held by the Lincoln Police Department or Lancaster County Sheriff. These are all free, but for a $10 fee on your credit card you can add a comprehensive list of all arrests by the Lincoln police and the disposition of those cases. For landlords and property managers, we also have a service available that allows them to check police dispatch information to any address they own or manage, so they never need be surprised to learn that the police had been called to their place.

There's not a community I know of where so much is so readily available. I used to call it "Dads' Instant Boyfriend Check." These resources are equally valuable for such people as employers or volunteer coordinators. How you hire a convicted embezzler for your accountant in this day and age is beyond me. All these checks are public record, by the way, they are just particularly accessible in Lincoln compared to every place else.