Minneapolis passes ordinance limiting tenant screening

by MinnPost staff 09/13/201902/06/2024

Reducing screen time. The Star Tribune’s Marissa Evans reports: “The Minneapolis City Council unanimously passed an ordinance Friday that limits how landlords use criminal history, eviction and credit scores to screen tenants. … Under the rule, landlords can’t deny an applicant on the basis of a misdemeanor if the conviction is older than three years and felonies seven years or older, and in certain cases of arson, assault or robbery, convictions more than 10 years old. The ordinance would not allow eviction judgments to be disqualifying if they happened three or more years earlier.”

Following an incident last year. WCCO reports: “The University of St. Thomas says it’s investigating and consulting St. Paul police after students found a racist word written on a dusty window in a dormitory bathroom. … In statement Thursday, President Julie Sullivan said the students found the racist word late Wednesday night on a bathroom window in Ireland Hall, a men’s dorm built in 1912 with a common bathroom on each floor.”

Breakthrough coming? KMSP’s Iris Perez reports: “A potential vaccine for HIV could be in development right now at the University of Minnesota. Researchers are in the middle of an experiment, which shows promise. … ‘Right now, if you have HIV, even if you have access to resources, you still have to live with treatment for the rest of your life,’ said Professor David Masopust, University of Minnesota Medical School.”

Books doing good. The Southwest Journal’s Zac Farber reports: “Atop the checkout counter at Wild Rumpus Books sits a small collection of Spanish, Portuguese and bilingual children’s books. The most popular is Señorita Mariposa, a rhyming picture book about a monarch butterfly’s 3,000-mile voyage ‘over mountains capped with snow to the deserts down below.’ … If a customer at the Linden Hills shop purchases one of these ‘Books for Border Kids,’ Wild Rumpus’ staff will mail it more than 1,100 miles southwest to an old adobe building in Las Cruces, New Mexico, that’s home to a bookstore owned by the novelist Denise Chávez. … At Casa Camino Real Bookstore, Chávez and her team of about 10 volunteer book stewards unpack donated books and prepare to distribute them to refugees who have fled violence or precarity in countries like El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Brazil and who are now living in hospitality centers or tent cities in New Mexico, Texas and Juárez.”