What do you think?
Should it be common practice for all landlord's to screen and deny potential renters if they have a low credit score, criminal charges and/or past evictions on their record? What about if they don't make 3x the rent per month? Or smokers? What about pets and/or children?
Should a landlord be able to just plain rent to whoever they want for whatever reason they want at any time they choose?
- What is considered discrimination and what is considered rent security?
- Is it okay to judge a stranger based on their socioeconomic status :
- is that any different than judging someone based on their race, gender or sexuality?
These "records" They keep on each one of us - do they really, 100% of the time, completely represent the human being they are attached to?
Does yours reflect what type of person you actually are? I would like to run a poll along these lines and see how many people out there really agree that the paper version of themselves is an accurate depiction of who they are as an individual. Does it match up with your trustworthiness, honesty, kindness?
It's clear the world looks at all these rates and defines each one of us directly by where we land in their charts. They crunch the numbers and out pops a little slip that indicates whether we are good enough to be allowed to live.
Think about that for just a minute....
We have a system of measurement which we trust enough to quantify worthiness and put a score on each person's life.
And this score is not just used to buy non-essential "luxury" items like a reliable car or JUST to live in a certain "expensive" areas "above certain standards of living".
- No, this is happening in even the poorest neighborhoods, even state or federal funded low-income housing can deny housing to those with low credit, criminal backgrounds or prior evictions. Don't believe me look it up for yourself.
(I personally defaced this FICO credit score chart which is openly available on bing.com)
These standards are setting the bar for who deserves to be homeless and who doesn't.
If your credit is poor, if you are poor, regardless of the real world reasons behind your current situation you are written off as not good enough to qualify for basic human necessities like a place to live.
Do these people deserve to be homeless? Does anyone?
- From a business point of view
- they are high risk investments likely to yield a loss, so yes they do.
- From a human's?
- Based on what I see going on in my corner of the world - I just don't know anymore.
Landlords have a lot a risk and it is their right to know who they are renting to.
Both very true points.
But when you start looking into the numbers in your area and see average mortgage payment is roughly $2200 for an entire home but you're seeing average 2 bedroom apartments going for $2000 a month some things just don't add up.
It seems like landlord's are a making quite a killing off having good enough credit to own a home.
Now, maybe there is nothing wrong with that - that's capitalism and free market working its charm and it's all well and good for those on the winning end but... when is enough? It's never enough to those who think in this frame of mind.
But what about those who do not make the cut?
Well my 20 minutes is up and I guess I voiced a bit of my concerns. I'd love to see what other people's perspectives are on renter rights, landlord rights, credit scores and social crediting systems in general - do you agree or disagree with the credit score system?
