State Sen. Mike Simmons, who represents the Rogers Park and Edgewater communities, is sponsoring a bill (Senate Bill 1728) that would prohibit housing providers from conducting credit checks.
It’s up for a vote in committee any day, so please act now.
Fill out this form to let Senator Simmons know how this measure will impact you and your tenants. You may use the form as provided or, to have the greatest impact, you may customize your message.
“As housing providers, we have used credit checks to enhance our ability to find good tenants, and to protect our existing tenants. We know there is more to a person than their credit score, but we need to know how much of a risk we are taking when we entrust one of our units to someone. This bill would make it harder to protect our businesses and harder to keep rents down for our tenants.”
– Steve Shah, Rogers Park Builders Group
Sec. 3-102. Civil rights violations; real estate
transactions and other prohibited acts. It is a civil rights
violation for an owner or any other person, or for a real
estate broker or salesman, because of unlawful discrimination,
familial status, immigration status, source of income, credit
score and history including insufficient credit history, or an
arrest record, as defined under subsection (B-5) of Section
1-103, to:
(A) Transactions. Refuse to engage in a real estate
transaction or deny real property, or to discriminate in
making available such a transaction;
(B) Terms. Alter the terms, conditions or privileges
of a real estate transaction or in the furnishing of
facilities or services in connection therewith;
(C) Offers. Refuse to receive or to fail to transmit a
bona fide offer in a real estate transaction from a
person;
Go to www.ILGA.gov and enter “SB1728” for full text. The underlined language covers proposed amendments to the bill.
Please fill out the form to quickly email State Senator Mike Simmons about this bill. Click “Customize Email” above the submit button and then type in the email body to add your own personal story to the letter. You can also click the “Call” option to see a script and send a phone call to Senator Simmons’ office.