Landlords discuss tactics to deter 'Program Recipients' from contacting them.

After Searching for rentals accepting the Work Advantage Voucher, which are scarce and far  inbetween, I came across this forum of Landlords helping each other deter Welfare, and Program Recipients from even emailing them. It's quite sad what I have to face.


"The best way to deter these people from calling you or emailing you is by being more detailed in your ad as far as requirements and rental criteria. Once they see you vigorously screen your tenants, and that you are asking for a lot of documentation, that will hopefully convince them not to call/email you as it will be a waste of time since they know they can't meet those requirements.

Example: 

-must make annually 40x the monthly rent or must make minimum 50K a year to qualify for the apartment. (people on programs don't earn that amount of money so you are indirectly sending a message to them that you don't accept programs without actually saying it.)

-must be employed

-must have good credit (hood people don't have good credit)

-must have no criminal record

-must have no housing court history/Landlord-tenant issues or evictions

-must not be a smoker (you can legally deny a person an apartment for being a smoker since smokers are NOT a protected class and you won't be accused of discrimination)

-must provide income tax papers to verify income

-must provide last 4 paystubs

-must provide last 4 bank statements

If you mention these requirements above, I guarantee you will have a significant drop of phone calls/emails from people that are on programs. A decent working person will appreciate the length you go through to get a tenant as it hints to the tenant that you screen your tenants and care who you put into you apartments. This will attract more working-class people who want a safe and quiet place to live. Hope that helps."


"The caliber of Tenants on programs is the worst of NYC in general, as you are dealing almost exclusively with the homeless, those evicted from prior apts due to non-payment of rent/violence/destruction of apt, non-working/limited income (so when money gets tight, and it always does, you don't get paid their portion of the rent), and women with lots of kids and random men that come in and out of their lives. Are there "needles in the haystack?" Absolutely, but it is not worth the time or effort to find them when you have lots of working, responsible people with good credit that you can accept.

I periodically have apts come available, and overall those on programs are the vast majority of respondents to my ads on craigslist. The very few that actually make it through my initial email screening have shown up totally unprepared, unkempt, unprofessional (to put it nicely), and with little regard for how they present themselves. So if I were you, I would think long and hard before choosing a tenant on a program versus a working tenant. In general I would say a credit check for every tenant is a minimum....if by some miracle the tenant on a program has above a 650 credit score (which is the absolute minimum score you should accept), you should also do a criminal background check and visit their current residence."

There's alot more where that came from...Check it out yourself.   city-data.com