Announcing ARCH by HomeScreen: At-risk Renters’ Connection to Housing
Tower Grove Neighborhoods Community Development Corporation (TGNCDC) has a mission to promote responsible development, affordable housing, and diverse character and vibrancy. One of the ways we achieve that mission is through our tenant screening program, HomeScreen, which was specifically designed to reframe the traditional tenant screening model and to fill vacancies in a nondiscriminatory way. Since launching in 2019, HomeScreen has provided progressive, data-driven tenant screening solutions for landlords and property managers who are looking to create more equitable housing within their communities. The vast majority of the nearly 5,000 applicants we have screened since launching HomeScreen are approved because of our unique approach that combines modern screening criteria, rooted in the Fair Housing Act, and landlord education of best leasing practices.
Last year, Covid-19 highlighted the systemic issues in housing that have existed for decades. Low-income renters saw reduced income as employers were forced to decrease or eliminate their work hours or they chose to stay home to social distance or help care for children, causing many to fall behind on rent. Eviction moratoriums helped ensure people were not displaced at the height of the pandemic, but the moratoriums will not last forever. In the meantime, the virus continued to spread, the economy continued to stall, and rent and late fees continued to stack up. HomeScreen, like many, fears that there will be a massive wave of evictions when the pandemic finally comes to an end.
When Employment Connection approached us about using HomeScreen as a tool to create a database of landlords willing to rent to tenants with barriers like evictions, we jumped on the opportunity. Through CARES Act funding we were able to make updates to the HomeScreen software that allows our over 1,000 registered landlords to participate in a new program, ARCH by HomeScreen: At-risk Renters’ Connection to Housing.
“Employment Connection is pleased to have forged a partnership with Tower Grove Neighborhoods CDC and HomeScreen to develop and launch the new ARCH by HomeScreen database. Both Employment Connection and Tower Grove Neighborhoods CDC understand the importance of quality, affordable housing and we are confident that this new product will revolutionize the relationship between families who are seeking housing and landlords who are searching for quality tenants.”
Sal Martinez, Chief Executive Officer, Employment Connection
ARCH by HomeScreen gives our landlords the ability to fill their vacant units quickly with someone in need of safe and stable housing by advertising their available rental units for free to non-profit social service providers seeking housing for their clients. By participating in ARCH by HomeScreen, our landlords will work with tenants who are most at-risk of homelessness. The applicants will likely have less than perfect applications that have acted as barriers to safe, secure housing in the past. ARCH by HomeScreen requires that these applicants will have supportive services from non-profit organizations throughout the region, who are constantly trying to find landlords willing to rent their properties to applicants with barriers. ARCH by HomeScreen will give social service providers a modern, easy-to-use system to submit applicants with their clients. HomeScreen will securely store apartment applications and will only charge the nonprofit organization for one screening per month, resulting in savings for nonprofit organizations over time. Finally, ARCH by HomeScreen will build upon our existing partnership with Prosperity Connection to offer one-on-one financial coaching to all applicants to establish and create an action plan to meet their financial goals.
ARCH by HomeScreen was created due to the accelerated crisis caused by Covid-19, but this was always the vision we imagined for HomeScreen. Evictions, criminal convictions, and other barriers to housing have had long-lasting effects on low-income renters before Covid-19. Unfortunately, we know for a fact that these barriers have a larger effect on people of color as well. We are hopeful that this tool can be used for many years in the future to reframe landlords’ thoughts on renting to applicants with barriers of any kind and to create a more equitable housing system in our communities. We would not have been in a position to seize this opportunity to make such a long-lasting impact without our custom HomeScreen software. The software, created through a grant from the Equifax Foundation in 2018, allows HomeScreen to take advantage of new opportunities as they arise, and adjust as the world changes. Thank you to the Equifax Foundation for allowing us to be in this position!
Existing HomeScreen landlords can opt-in to ARCH by HomeScreen today from their dashboard.
New to HomeScreen? Register as a Landlord here.
If you are a part of a non-profit organization looking to view the ARCH by HomeScreen listings, contact Ella Gross at ella@towergrovecdc.org for more information.
Revenue generated through HomeScreen is used to support community development activities and is directly invested back into the City of Saint Louis. TGNCDC is a real estate-focused community development corporation that has facilitated 100s of redevelopment projects with a focus on eliminating blight, created 84 affordable rental units (owned and managed) in the last 5 years, supported infrastructure projects, delivered landlord/rehabber training seminars, and advocated for energy efficiency programs for low-income renters.