How far can a landlord go in banning people with felony or serious misdemeanor convictions as tenants?

A new federal lawsuit seeks to find out.

The fair housing watchdog Housing Opportunities Made Equal filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Richmond June 4 to challenge a Chesterfield County apartment complex’s policy banning anyone “who has ever been convicted of any felony” from becoming a tenant.

The complex, Sterlingt Glen Apartments, also “bars applicants with misdemeanor arrests or convictions, including drug possession charges and sex crimes,” according to the suit.

The suit, which appears to be the first test case of its kind in the area, claims that the blanket ban violates federal and state fair housing laws because it would be a barrier to potential tenants who are African-American due to a higher percentage of African-Americans in the county having criminal arrests and convictions.

The suit asks the court to enjoin the complex from imposing such a sweeping ban and to require the complex to consider each applicant on the basis of their record since their release.

According to the suit and court records, about 10,000 people in Chesterfield County currently have felony records, with about 5,000 being Caucasian and about 4,500 being African-American.

However, white felons represent just 2.5 percent of the county’s white population of 207,000 people, while African-American felons represent about 6.7 percent of the county’s smaller black population 68,000 people, according to data in the suit.

HOME’s suit developed after potential renters sent by the nonprofit to test Sterling Glen’s policies were rejected based on their criminal histories. HOME has legal help in the suit from the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Virginia and a Washington-based civil rights law firm, Relman, Dane & Colfax.

Charles Wisely of Staunton, whose companies own and manage the complex, could not be reached for comment. He has not yet responded to the suit.

Bans of tenants with criminal convictions are not unusual. The government has long had such policies on housing it subsidizes, although the ACLU and HOME apparently have never challenged their application.

Following those policies, the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority bans people from its properties based on their criminal records, regularly evicts families with a member who is convicted of a felony and also can evict tenants who have guests with felony records.

Under the government policy, registered sex offenders cannot rent taxpayer subsidized housing, nor can anyone convicted of producing methamphetamines in subsidized housing or who uses illegal drugs.

However, unlike Sterling Glen’s policy that provides for no exceptions, federal policy since 2016 has given RRHA and other government-supported local housing agencies “discretion” to reject or admit “applicants with a history of drug-related offenses, violent crimes or crimes that threaten the health, safety or peaceful enjoyment of the property.”

According to Jennifer Safstrom, an attorney with the ACLU of Virginia, such blanket bans “not only pose a housing barrier to people re-entering the community after release from jail or prison, but also those with records who have been living and working in the community for years or even decades.”