Across Arizona renters are being told they have to sign something called a “crime-free lease addendum” in order to close their lease. On the surface, some may say the concept sounds fine.
In practice, crime-free lease addendums are a tool landlords use to summarily evict tenants they don’t like with almost no due process. And that has bad public-health consequences for low-income families.
What’s a Crime-Free Lease Addendum?
A signed crime-free lease addendum allows a landlord to almost immediately evict a tenant by simply claiming that the tenant or sometimes a guest did something illegal – even if they have no evidence.
Landlords don’t even need to show that there was a police or arrest report, charges or a conviction. There doesn’t even need to be evidence!
Arizona Republic’s Hannah Dreyfus’ Series:
- Protecting Your Housing Rights: A Primer on AZ’s ‘Fair Housing’ Law
- Arizona renters sign away protections with crime-free lease addendum
- Arizona renters can lose housing aid even when evictions are dropped
What renters in Arizona should know about crime-free lease addendums
Landlords executing these ‘addendums’ usually focus on drug use. They often allege a tenant used illegal drugs, even something like “magic mushrooms” & use that allegation to summarily evict their tenant.
Eviction can happen at once even if rent is paid on time and the tenant has followed every term in the lease.
How ‘Crime-Free Lease Addendums’ Fuel Homelessness & Heat Deaths – AZ Public Health Association
Eviction Is Already Easy in Arizona
Arizona law already strongly favors landlords. Under the Arizona Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, a tenant can be evicted in as little as 30 days for being just five days late on rent.
Crime-free lease addendums supercharge evictions by making them even faster. They turn unproven accusations into grounds for immediate displacement.
Evictions Are a Public-Health Issue
Housing is one of the most important social determinants of health. When people lose stable housing, the health effects are immediate and severe.
Evictions—especially sudden ones—can lead to:
- job loss when people can’t get to work
- kids missing school or being forced to change schools
- loss of housing aid
- increased stress, anxiety, and depression
- higher risk of heat illness and death, especially during Arizona summers
Families already struggling with low wages, rising rents, or health issues are hit the hardest.
Recent Arizona reporting has shown that tenants can lose housing aid even when landlords later drop eviction cases. That means a single allegation — again never proven — can permanently damage a family’s ability to stay housed.
Once someone has an eviction on their record, it becomes much harder to find another place to live. The result is a cycle that pushes families closer to homelessness, not stability.
UA Students Step Up: A Blueprint for Change
Last semester, students Grady Campbell, Levonia Cellicion, Callie Haggerty, Stephanie Hernandez, Liz Olivarez, Mariah Quinn, and Dora Valencia
at the UA Mel & Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health in Dr. Maia Ingram’s class took on this issue head-on. Collaborating with community partners, they developed a statewide advocacy plan to reduce or end the use of crime-free lease addendums in Arizona.
UA Student Advocacy Plan to Reduce Crime Free Lease Addendums
Their plan is practical, thoughtful, and grounded in public-health principles. It includes:
- Clear policy goals, like limiting evictions based on unproven allegations
- Education strategies to inform renters about their rights before they sign a lease
- Legislative approaches to bring fairness and due process back into housing law
- Coalition-building among public-health groups, housing advocates, legal aid organizations and renters
- Messaging strategies that center health, fairness, and family stability
Most importantly, the students framed housing stability as a health issue, not just a legal or economic one.
Thanks to the leadership of University of Arizona students, we now have a clear roadmap for how Arizona can do better. Our current work centers on identifying a sponsor to run the legislation.
