Pit Bulls have “a bad rap” that sometimes cost their owners housing and Evanston City Council member Devon Reid (8th) is trying to change that.
Reid is sponsoring a law making its way to the Evanston City Council that would forbid landlords from denying housing to renters just because they have any dog including a pit bull. And he said that law could soon be followed by another initiative requiring people adopting pets to first take a test and get a license to ensure they’re able to properly care for the animal.
The law forbidding landlords from discriminating against dog owners was recently approved by the city’s Human Services Committee and is expected to go to the council for a vote in the coming weeks, said Reid.
“This is certainly an issue that has been brought to my attention from residents and our animal shelter,” he said. “Landlords and housing providers often have policies where they limit certain breeds. I’ve run into that several times where a landlord said we don’t accept pit bulls. We don’t accept Dobermans or whatever.”
“Certain dogs have gotten a bad rap when historically they’ve been known as family dogs,” he explained. “Somewhere around the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s when pit bulls became synonymous with the Black community and the inner city, this became a proxy for limiting people of color in buildings. It became associated with people of color.”
Reid said he ran into problems when he was denied a rental in Evanston because he told the landlord he had a pit bull. He said that when he clarified that his pet was an “American Staffordshire Terrier” he was able to keep his pet named Macy.
‘“Pit bull’ is not a breed but instead a category of dog that describes a look and shape of the dog,” he explained. “Typically pit bulls are a Terrier breed.”
During the August 19 Human Services Committee meeting Reid played a YouTube video showing the history of how pit bulls “got a bad rap as vicious dogs.”
“It says pit bulls are kind of like the Honda Civic of dogs because they’re really popular,” he said. “A lot of folks have them. They’re affordable dogs. When looking at the data it shows pit bulls are not more prone to biting. It’s like a shark bite. They’re rare, but once it happens it makes the news.”
Reid’s initiative has the tentative support of the Evanston Animal Shelter (EAS) but the “devil is in the details,” said Vicky Pasenko, executive director of the EAS.
“We have a lot of people who end up surrendering their dog to us because they’re forced to move out of their current housing for whatever reason and they’re not able to find a place where they can live with their dog either because of the breed or because of size,” she explained. “If it accomplishes what he is hoping for it would be a wonderful thing from our perspective.”
She also noted there could be a downside to the new law. “Landlords could still have the ability to say ‘no pets,’ so it could lead to more total bans on pets.”
Reid said his second proposal, requiring potential pet owners to take a test and get a license to ensure they’re able to properly take care of their pet, could go to Evanston’s Human Services Committee later this year.
“Currently we license the dog as if the dog is responsible for its behavior, not the environment it was raised in,” he said.
“If a dog bites someone a couple of times, the dog is deemed a ‘dangerous dog’ and the dog has to be dealt with and the owner can just go out and get another dog and repeat the cycle,” he added. “We’ve had people in our town with eighty-plus cats in their house causing a nuisance to the neighborhood and a health risk to themselves and most importantly for the animals.
“We can take the animals away but without a license process that person is free to go out and get another eighty cats and put those cats lives and their own life potentially in danger and the neighborhood,” he said.
Brian L., Cox is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.