|
Telephone interview screening
(Please read my notes at the bottom for reasons you may wish to avoid this. This is not a reflection on the owner who wrote about their phone screening process, but not all of you will be as record keeping conscious as they )
EK: It took 10 years to get our phone prescreening tool perfected.
The questions we ask are and the criteria we use are very specific, consistent (used with each and every caller), thorough, non-discriminatory and fair. I document everything in a log book. I much prefer to pre-screen on the phone than to waste my time or the applicant's if they don't meet our criteria.
Also, I have to be concerned for my safety. I don't want to meet someone for a showing who has violent tendancies. Translation: I CCAP them first as part of my pre-screening process so that I don't show an apartment to an ax-
murderer! You know,
I am surprised by the people who don't meet our criteria and I tell them specifically why and they say, "well, I still wanna see it". Hmmm.
Then our application and landlord reference checks round out the screening process after we show the applicant the unit. I also re-check the CCAP info based on any "new" info that the application brings to light.
meeting on July 10th.
Why you may wish avoid telephone prescreening
I see "phone screening" as possibly dangerous from a fair housing perspective on a number of levels.
Last year HUD had a big fair housing ad campaign voice biased discrimination. The term used to describe this is "linguistic profiling". You saw the TV ads where the applicant morphed between ethnicities and was only give the chance to apply when he sounded white with a European surname. Without taking a written app how do you prove that the applicant's accent or last name wasn't the cause of your decision to reject them?
Article on voice discrimination
Then also what happens when you refuse to offer an app to George Johnson based on an extensive criminal background when the applicant was really George Johnston?
One of our members is currently responding to a charge that they unlawfully failed to include food stamps as part of the rent to income ratio based on an answer they gave over the phone without having the prospective tenant's full information. Had they taken a written app and processed it against a set criteria they would have
probably avoided the complaint.
Finally what proof do you have of who you screened. Lets say Mary Smith calls, you reject her due to extensive eviction history, she gets angry and has a Jane Jones, friend with a good rental record, file a fair housing complaint claiming it was Ms. Jones who was rejected for no legitimate reason. How do you prove you actually rejected Smith?
One person has commented on this article.  No.1 UntitledIf she gave the name of "Mary Smith" then how in the world can she claim she was discriminated against, and that her name was really "Ms Jones" |
