Tenant Resources
Strengthening tenants’ rights has long been a priority of City elected officials. Over half of St. Louis residents are renters, yet challenges around securing and maintaining safe, stable housing have persisted for years and were exacerbated by the 2025 tornado.
One challenge that tenants and advocacy groups have raised time and time again is the complicated, expensive, and sometimes secretive nature of rental applications and tenant screening processes. Renters are not privy to what information tenant screening platforms use to judge their applications, and may have their rental application denied without explanation. The data used to inform tenant screening programs can be inaccurate or outdated. This makes the tenant screening process unnecessarily traumatic and expensive, adding hardship to an already challenging rental landscape.
In partnership with Tenants Transforming Greater St. Louis, Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, ArchCity Defenders, HomeScreen, and Empower Missouri, the President of the Board of Aldermen’s Office participated in a program through PolicyLink where local teams learned how to identify issues with tenant screening in their city, develop innovative strategies to help renters navigate it, and make policy recommendations to improve the system.
As a result of our participation in that program, our team was awarded a $12,500 grant to educate tenants about their rights; collect data on how screening practices affect housing access; identify potential reforms; and connect renters with resources to review and correct screening reports, avoid predatory listings, and navigate the rental application process, particularly for residents displaced by the May tornado.
Phases
Know Your Rights!
In collaboration with community partners, a series of workshops will be offered to give tenants the opportunity to share the challenges they have faced with securing housing, discuss the barriers caused by complicated and unclear tenant screening processes, and learn skills to help them navigate the changing rental market.
