(WBBM NEWSRADIO) - One of the area's biggest suppliers of background checks will be helping Cook County make sure its housing laws are being followed.
Sisavanh Baker, Cook County’s director of human rights and ethics, said her department has been getting complaints from people who said they’re being denied apartment rentals because of old criminal convictions, in violation of the Just Housing Amendment.
Baker said there are indications that some landlords are not complying with the law, saying that they can’t consider criminal records three years old or older when screening tenants.
But, she said TransUnion, the biggest provider of background checks to landlords, has offered to help.
Baker said TransUnion, which performs background checks, has offered to change its system so landlords won’t get any info they’re not supposed to have. The company’s not the only agency that does background checks. But Baker said it’s probably the largest.
“We had to ask them, on their own dime, to change their systems so it conforms with that two-step screening process,” Baker said.
Now, Baker said, landlords will only get the information that is legal. She said this partnership is huge.
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