Every year, approximately 3.6 million individuals facing eviction assume an additional concern for their future: the challenge of finding a new home with an eviction on their record. Widespread screening technologies and practices—such as algorithmic risk scores and recommendations and outright bans against people with evictions and other histories—create a massive web of barriers to housing. These hurdles make an increasingly costly housing market even harder to access, especially for low-income, Black and Brown households with an eviction record.
States, cities and counties across the country are fighting against these unfair and frequently discriminatory practices by enacting tenant screening protections like eviction record sealing.
Will your community follow suit and open the door to housing access for residents?
Results for America, in partnership with PolicyLink, National Housing Law Project, National Consumer Law Center, TechEquity and Upturn, invites place-based teams to apply for an 8-week Solutions Sprint, Unlocked: Opening the Door to Housing Access Through Tenant Screening Protections. This free learning series will provide teams with the knowledge, tools and strategies needed to design and implement policies that prevent the harms of eviction records and tenant screening practices—and expand access to affordable housing.
Applying teams should include government staff, advocates and community partners committed to advancing fair tenant screening practices and eliminating eviction-based barriers to housing.
Key Dates
- Informational Webinar: Friday, May 9, 2025 from 10am – 10:45am PT/ 1pm – 1:45pm ET
- Application Deadline: Monday, June 9, 2025 by 11:59pm PT
- Sprint Timeline: 8 sessions; July – end of August 2025
Why Participate?
Participants will undergo an 8 week learning series focused on tenant screening protections that prevent housing discrimination and exclusion. Each session will build on the last, covering foundational knowledge, policy design and strategies to launch, sustain and win campaigns for stronger tenant protections. During the sprint, local participating jurisdiction teams can expect to:
1. Gain guidance and knowledge on how to design, advocate for and implement policies that prevent harmful tenant screening practices, with a focus on eviction record-related practices in particular. These tenant screening protection policies include: eviction record sealing, limits on the use of eviction records by landlords and regulations on AI/tech-backed screening processes.
2. Learn alongside and from experts, advocates and tenant leaders. Participants will meet subject matter experts, advocates and tenant leaders who have collaborated on policy solutions to address the problem of harmful tenant screening practices.
3. Participate in one-on-one coaching sessions post-Sprint. Following the Sprint, participants will have the opportunity to engage in individual technical assistance sessions with expert Solutions Sprint partners. These coaching sessions will provide tailored support and actionable recommendations for how to effectively advance team policy campaigns.
4. Access grant funding. Results for America will award one Sprint team a grant to support their action plan and chosen policy solution to reduce or eliminate harmful tenant screening practices. The grant amount and criteria will be shared with participating teams.
5. Build a network with other advocates and allies. Participants will join a broad advocacy and organizing network fighting for consumer protections and housing justice.
Sprint Objectives
By the end of the Sprint, participants and teams will:
1. Understand the harms of tenant screening and explore solutions. Participants will learn how tenant screening practices—especially those driven by private AI-driven tenant screening companies and third-party data vendors impair the housing prospects of people nationwide. Participants will then learn about solutions, such as tenant screening protections, such as eviction sealing policies and more, that can protect people’s housing futures, access and stability.
2. Increase confidence to lead strong local or statewide policy campaigns. Participating teams will receive resources and trainings to better utilize data, narrative and organizing strategies in their campaigns. Teams will also learn how to identify key stakeholders, like judges or court administrators, needed in a strong coalition to pass tenant screening regulations.
3. Identify and tailor the right policy approach for their community. Participating teams will learn about multiple policy designs through case studies during Sprint sessions. Participants will analyze how various tenant screening protections are designed, why certain approaches work in specific contexts and what factors—including legal, political and community dynamics—should inform their own policy decisions.
4. Develop an action plan with fellow team members. Teams will collaborate on their next steps for advancing tenant screening protections. Throughout the sprint, teams will have access to the tools and knowledge to create an action plan for advancing tenant screening regulations in their communities.
✅ Engage courts, gather data and amplify tenant voices to identify tenant screening challenges.
✅ Build tenant-led coalitions and identify legislative allies to champion change.
✅ Develop policy goals and bill language with strategies to counter opposition.
✅ Create a clear timeline for advocacy, coalition growth and legislative action.
Who Should Apply
This Solutions Sprint opportunity is designed for advocates, organizers, legal service providers, consumer advocates and judicial administrators and staff. We recommend at least 3 people to participate as part of a team.
Participating members of the team should include, but are not limited to, leaders and staff from:
Required
✅ Local or state government staff
Strongly recommended
✅ Legal services providers (including those in housing and consumer units)
✅ Tenant advocates
✅ Policymakers (including municipal government staff, state legislators, city councilpersons)
✅ Tenant organizers and/or people with eviction records
✅ Consumer advocates
Recommended
✅ Departments or agencies that implement and/or enforce housing laws, including but not limited to: members of a local rent board, human rights or fair housing agencies, or tenant unions
✅ Judicial staff and court administrators
✅ Housing providers
✅ Researchers / Data Scientists / Information Technologists
Participation Requirements
To ensure a meaningful and impactful Sprint experience, teams ultimately selected to participate are expected to demonstrate the following in their application:
Interest and commitment. Teams should demonstrate a strong interest and commitment to advancing tenant screening protections in their corresponding communities and/or mitigating the harms created by tenant screening practices. This may include teams who have or are currently engaging in any of the following:
✅ Gathering local data and information on discriminatory screening practices, especially for individuals with eviction records.
✅ Coordinating a coalition of advocates around eviction, housing access, affordability, or quality issues.
✅ Identified legislative, judicial (including court administration), or executive champions with aligned values on consumer protections and rights in the housing market.
✅ Running a state, county, or city-wide policy campaign for tenant screening protections.
✅ Expressing desire to strengthen an existing tenant screening protection law or policy.
✅ Navigating challenges to implementation, enforcement, compliance and opposition narratives regarding existing tenant screening protections.
✅ Dedication to enforcing and strengthening fair housing outcomes. Teams should be dedicated to the pursuit of fair housing outcomes for tenants in the housing search process.
Maximize Opportunity, Minimize Injustice. Committed to advancing just housing access and outcomes by addressing disparities or similar fair housing issues.
Active Participation. A majority of the team is expected to be present at and fully engage in all sessions as well as complete all pre-and post-session activities.
Ability to advance policies. Teams should be poised to advocate for, pass, or implement tenant screening protections in their respective communities.
Why Advance Tenant Screening Protections?
The Challenge
Tenant screening practices play a critical role in determining who has access to safe and affordable housing—and who does not. These systems create significant barriers for millions of renters, particularly those with eviction records.
Landlords overwhelmingly rely on tenant screening tools, with 90 percent using background checks to scrutinize the rental, credit, employment, income and criminal histories of tenants—even though many of these data sources often lack context or accuracy. As a result, even a single blemish on a record—whether an eviction filing, a credit issue or another factor—can lead to automatic denials, reinforcing cycles of housing instability and inequality.
Every year, 3.6 million people across the country—disproportionately Black and Latinx women—face eviction filings. Evictions disproportionately destabilize low-income renters, with a single filing often triggering cycles of housing exclusion, economic hardship and homelessness. Regardless of the case’s outcome, simply having an eviction record can make it significantly harder for individuals to secure stable housing.
The Solution
Tenant screening protections are laws, regulations, or policies that restrict how prospective tenants can be evaluated, often by limiting the use of information like criminal records, eviction records, or credit history.
These measures aim to reduce discriminatory barriers to housing and ensure that applicants are not unfairly rejected due to a past eviction, financial hardships, or other factors unrelated to their ability to be reliable tenants. Fairer screening practices protect renters—particularly marginalized groups disproportionately impacted by strict criteria—and promote access to safe and affordable housing.
Across the country, tenant-led coalitions are mobilizing to demand robust tenant screening reforms—curbing eviction record use in rental decisions and ensuring records are sealed by default. Policymakers are moving in step and advancing measures to sever the link between eviction records and housing access: laws now seal eviction filings, ban consideration of past evictions after a set period and prohibit denials based solely on eviction history. These protections are critical to dismantling systemic barriers to housing stability, ensuring that past hardships do not permanently derail a tenant’s future.
Since 2020, more than 20 states and cities have advanced policies that would seal eviction records and protect the futures of tenants. The strongest policies have been able to:
- Seal records at the point of filing
- Restrict certain information on records from public view
- Provide a low threshold for tenants to seal their own records
- Regulate the information that landlords can use in background checks
Below are just a few places around the country who have begun putting these policies into practice:
- In 2022, the D.C. Council strengthened pandemic-era screening protections and passed a law that seals eviction records and limits their use. Records are sealed automatically after 30 days if the case ended without a judgment in favor of the landlord, or after three years if it did end in favor of the landlord or meets certain criteria. This law also prohibits landlords from using past eviction records in housing decisions (except for cases less than three years old that ended in favor of the landlord).1
- In 2016, California passed state bill AB 2819 which automatically seals an eviction record for 60 days unless a case goes to trial and a judgment is made in favor of the landlord. If a case takes longer than 60 days to go to trial and receive a judgment, the case remains permanently sealed.2
- The Colorado legislature passed a statewide law in 2020 to prevent eviction records from harming the future housing prospects of tenants by keeping court records and the names of all involved parties concealed until the end of an eviction proceeding. If the court rules in favor of the tenant or if both parties agree, the records remain sealed.³
- Philadelphia’s Renters’ Access Act, enacted in October of 2021, created a tenant screening policy that instructs landlords to provide uniform screening criteria to prospective tenants and dictates how eviction records can be used when landlords review tenant applications.4
For more on the proven benefits of tenant screening protections and related resources, visit the Sprint facilitator websites.
Sprint Facilitators
PolicyLink
PolicyLink is a national research and action institute that is working to build a future where all people in the United States of America can participate in a flourishing multiracial democracy, prosper in an equitable economy and live in thriving communities.
National Consumer Law Center
The nonprofit National Consumer Law Center® (NCLC®) works for economic justice for low-income and other disadvantaged people in the U.S. through policy analysis and advocacy, publications, litigation and training.
National Housing Law Project
The National Housing Law Project (NHLP) is a housing law and advocacy center, established in 1968. For over 40 years, NHLP has been dedicated to advancing housing justice for the poor by using the power of the law to increase and preserve the supply of decent affordable housing.
TechEquity
TechEquity is an organization that raises public consciousness about economic equity issues resulting from the tech industry’s products and practices and advocates for change that ensures tech’s evolution benefits everyone.
Upturn
Upturn is a research and advocacy organization that works to advance justice in the design, governance and use of technology. We investigate the specific ways that technology shapes people’s opportunities and reproduces racial and economic injustice and we advocate for transformative social change.
1District of Columbia Official Code §§ 16-150; Rental Housing Act of 1985 § 42-3505.01 & § 42-3505.09-42-3505.10; Human Rights Act of 1977 § 2-1401.01 & 2-1401.02 & 2-1402.21
2California Code of Civil Procedure §§ 1161.2 & 1167.1
3 Colorado Revised Statutes §§ 13-40-110.5 & 13-40-111 & 38-12-202.5
4 The Philadelphia Code §§ 9-1008 (3) & (4), 9-810