H.R. 8588 — Housing FIRST Act

This section defines tenant screening purposes under the Fair Credit Reporting Act as the use of a consumer report to evaluate a consumer for rental housing or retention as a renter or tenant. It makes conforming amendments to sections 603, 604, 605A, 606, 609, and 613 of the Act to apply the same requirements that govern consumer reports for employment purposes—including adverse action notices, disclosures, and fair housing considerations—to tenant screening.

This section prohibits consumer reporting agencies from including specified information in consumer reports furnished for tenant screening purposes. The prohibition covers (1) arrest records; (2) juvenile adjudications or convictions, including those in which a juvenile was tried as an adult; (3) non-criminal citations by state or local law enforcement; (4) criminal cases resolved through diversion, deferred adjudication, deferred entry of judgment, drug court, or similar programs; (5) convictions for which the sentence has been completed or the consumer remains on probation or parole; (6) offenses related to unpaid court costs or incarceration fees; and (7) records that have been expunged, sealed, vacated, set aside, or pardoned.

This section expands the conditions under section 604(b) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act for furnishing and using consumer reports to cover tenant screening purposes in addition to employment purposes. It also inserts references to fair housing alongside existing equal employment opportunity provisions in required disclosures.

This section modifies the required disclosures to consumers under section 609(a)(2) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act by clarifying that the sources of information in a consumer report include any entity from whom the consumer reporting agency received the information.

This section requires users of consumer reports for tenant screening purposes to provide consumers with the notice described in subsection (a) within 3 days after taking any adverse action, including denial of rental housing, and to furnish the specific reasons for the adverse action, including the consumer report information on which it was based.

This section prohibits State regulation of the time after which information excluded from consumer reports becomes obsolete under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

This section makes technical corrections to section 615(h)(8) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681m(h)(8)) by replacing references to “this section” with “this subsection” in subparagraphs (A) and (B).