Marckus Williams and the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana v. Tricon Residential, Inc.
On November 20, 2024, Relman Colfax filed a class action complaint in federal court against Tricon Residential for allegedly maintaining indiscriminate policies that deny housing to applicants with criminal or eviction histories, disproportionately affecting Black individuals and Black women. The suit was filed on behalf of named Plaintiff Marckus Williams, on behalf of a class of Black applicants, and by the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana (FHCCI) pursuant to the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act. This case is one of the first of its kind to take on these widespread but discriminatory policies.
Tricon is one of the largest providers of single-family rental homes in the country, owning nearly 40,000 single-family rental homes in North America.
The Complaint alleges that, at all of its single-family rental homes nationwide, Tricon maintains two policies that have a disparate impact on the basis of race and/or gender. First, Tricon has a blanket ban against renting to individuals with a record of any felony convictions within the past seven years, or any convictions for a list of enumerated offenses regardless of when they occurred. Second, Tricon has a blanket ban against renting to individuals with a record of any eviction filings within at least the past two years. Plaintiffs allege that these blanket bans disproportionately affect Black individuals who are historically overrepresented in criminal justice statistics, as well as Black women, who face higher rates of eviction filings.
Plaintiffs claim that Tricon has acted against federal guidance by failing to conduct individualized assessments of applicants. Instead, if a screening report shows any criminal and/or eviction filing history that Tricon has deemed disqualifying, the company immediately denies the applicant. The company does not inquire into whether the information on the screening report is correct; disregard convictions or evictions that have been expunged, sealed, or otherwise legally nullified; or distinguish between eviction filings, most of which do not ultimately result in an eviction, and actual evictions.
According to the lawsuit, the proportion of Black people disqualified by Tricon’s blanket ban on renting to people with any felony convictions within the past seven years is 5.32 times greater than the proportion of white people disqualified. And with respect to the company’s policy regarding eviction filings, Black women are overrepresented in eviction filings by nearly 200%. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has stated that eviction filing records are "notably unreliable.”
Plaintiff Marckus Williams’s experience exemplifies the impact of Tricon’s policies. In November of 2022, Mr. Williams, who is a Black man, applied to rent a Tricon home and paid an application fee. His screening report showed three prior criminal convictions. Had Tricon inquired further, it would have learned that two of the listed convictions had been expunged, and one was not a conviction at all. But Tricon did not inquire into the convictions on Mr. Williams’s screening report, nor did it give Mr. Williams an opportunity to provide this or other relevant information. Tricon applied its blanket ban, and automatically denied Mr. Williams’s rental applications. Had they inquired, Tricon would have learned that in the eight years since his release from incarceration, Mr. Williams had built a business and been a responsible tenant.
Mr. Williams’s struggle to find housing eventually brought him to FHCCI, a local non-profit organization that promotes open access to housing. FHCCI undertook a comprehensive investigation into Tricon’s practices and their discriminatory effects. FHCCI’s investigation uncovered Tricon’s categorical ban on renting not only to justice-involved individuals, but also to individuals with prior eviction filings.
Mr. Williams is likely just one of hundreds, if not thousands, of Black individuals who have been discriminated against by Tricon’s policy of not renting to certain justice-involved or eviction-involved applicants. As such, Mr. Williams brings his claims on behalf of not only himself, but all Black and female applicants who were otherwise qualified to rent with Tricon but were automatically rejected from tenancy based on Tricon’s criminal history and eviction policy.
Guidance issued by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2016 and again in 2022 recommends individualized review as a less discriminatory alternative to categorically banning certain justice-involved applicants. For years, major industry organizations have disseminated information about this guidance and emphasized the importance of dispensing with blanket bans.
This suit seeks to prevent Tricon from continuing its discriminatory and unlawful conduct and ensure that applicants injured by Tricon’s practices will have a meaningful opportunity to secure desperately needed rental housing.
The Relman Colfax litigation team includes Lila Miller, Ellora Israni, and Valerie Comenencia Ortiz, with paralegal support from Esmeralda Hermosillo and Jake Hogan.