Committee begins hearings on H.169 after testimony on Social Security number ban, credit checks and immigration protections

The General & Housing committee began testimony March 28 on H.169, a bill that would add citizenship and immigration status to certain anti‑discrimination protections and would, in one section, restrict landlords from collecting Social Security numbers for tenant screening.

The move “commence[s] hearing” on the measure, Committee chair said at the start of the session, calling H.169 “a complicated bill, an interesting bill that’s gonna require a considerable informed testimony.” The committee took several hours of witness statements and indicated it will continue hearings.

The first witness, Chris Donnelly, director of community relations for Champlain Housing Trust, told the committee his organization supports the bill’s inclusion of citizenship status and that the proposal “commits the state to more inclusivity.” He described how Champlain Housing Trust screens applications and said the trust looks back six months for payment history and flags applicants who were more than $1,500 past due in that period. Donnelly said the trust typically has a long lead time between application and unit availability — “it takes 14 months in time that someone fills out an application or pre application with us to the time we have an apartment available for that.”

Donnelly said his organization’s initial reaction to the SSN prohibition was concern because credit and background checks have historically relied on Social Security numbers. After follow‑up, he said, “we can actually get this very similar amount of information, without using a social security number” by using name, date of birth and prior addresses, and by relying on property‑management software that connects to credit vendors. He noted, however, that federal funding requirements can force collection of certain identifiers and asked that statutory language explicitly preserve compliance with federal law.

Angela Zukowski, director of the Vermont Landlord Association and an attorney, told the committee her first read of the bill suggested it prohibited landlords from obtaining Social Security numbers, running credit checks and running criminal background checks. “I will say, I think there’s some language issues in section 1,” she said. Zukowski said major property‑management platforms such as AppFolio require a Social Security number to run a full credit report and that without SSNs landlords are likely to receive incomplete matches. “You are not going to get a good report,” she said, adding that the Social Security number is “a unique identifier for a person” that ties together records across name or address changes.

Zukowski warned the committee that a blanket prohibition would impose extra work on housing providers and smaller landlords, because alternative screening would require more “legwork and investigative work” and could slow placements or burden providers. She also expressed concern about the bill’s immigration status language, saying housing providers could be put in a position of choosing between state requirements and potential federal immigration laws. She asked the committee to consider drafting that language carefully and offered to submit suggested revisions.

Committee members raised additional practical concerns. One member referenced the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act and a federal website used to confirm military deployment status for civil actions; the member said that site currently requires a Social Security number to run the check for purposes such as eviction proceedings. Committee members asked witnesses whether commercial screening services such as RealPage can return adequate matches without SSNs and whether cost or speed would be affected; Donnelly said RealPage (and similar vendors) supply the functionality through property‑management systems but he could not confirm costs or timing differences.

Witnesses and members also discussed special populations: immigrants without U.S. credit histories, foreign nationals who may have tax identification numbers instead of Social Security numbers, and survivors of domestic violence who may have protected or changed identities. Angela Zukowski said landlords often rely on employer references or other noncredit indicators in those cases, but that the alternative screening processes are more time‑consuming and may not be practicable for every applicant.

The committee asked housing providers and the landlord association for suggested redrafting, especially for section 1, so the statute would not unintentionally bar necessary screening or put providers in conflict with federal rules. The committee chair closed by saying the committee would continue to take testimony at future sessions and that additional witnesses are scheduled.

The hearing produced discussion and requests for revised statutory language but no formal vote.