Improving Housing Opportunities for Individuals with Conviction Records
Package Four: Advocacy Tips
This package contains advocacy tips to help convince public housing authorities (PHAs) to create reasonable standards regarding applicants with criminal records. While some of the suggestions are basic and probably used by most advocates, some may be less evident. This package includes persuasive points of information and resources [Michelle, please hyperlink to resources section, below] on creative approaches for improving access to housing for individuals with criminal records.
- Meet with PHAs
- Arrange
meetings with decision-makers at your local PHA to educate them about
the needs of the large community of people with conviction records
- Explain
to the local PHA the provisions of federal housing law outlined above
(and provide copies to them), and explain that PHAs do have discretion
to admit most people with conviction records.
- Offer
to assist the PHA with redrafting their housing guidelines, using the
model policy below as a starting point.
- Remind
the PHA that the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
(HUD) has explicitly stated that in evaluating an applicant for public
housing, a PHA must consider the time, nature, and extent of applicant’s
conduct and the seriousness of the offense.1
Further, HUD encourages a case-by-case analysis for people with conviction
histories.2
- Share
with them the following persuasive points of information:
- More
than 600,000 people will be released from prison this year.3
Many will have made good use of their time while incarcerated: learning
a trade, obtaining their GED, receiving treatment for addiction,
and repenting for past mistakes. 64 million Americans (close to
one third of the adult population) have federal or state conviction
records.
- Upon
release, people face multiple challenges to reentry. Employers and
housing agencies both routinely discriminate against people with
conviction records.
- Human
Rights Watch estimates that between the years of 1999 and 2004,
3.5 million people with felony convictions were denied public housing.4
This number would be even higher if it included those denied housing
because of misdemeanors, non-criminal offenses and arrests on their
records.
- Efforts
by PHAs to admit and retain residents with conviction records (with
suitable precautions for other residents) serve their local communities
by reducing recidivism and relapse. Access to decent, stable housing
increases the likelihood that a person with a conviction record
will obtain and retain employment and remain drug- and crime-free.5
- One
study found that two-thirds of people with had been in prison who
did not have appropriate housing committed crimes within the first
twelve months of release, while only one-fourth of those with housing
re-offended in the same time frame.6
- The
American Bar Association (ABA) and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunities
Commission (EEOC) have both recommended that if conviction records
are used to deny housing (or employment, in the case of the EEOC),
the disqualification should be “particularly related to the
offense.”7
- People
with conviction records are among those with the greatest need for
public housing because of the multiple barriers they face: limited
income, lack of employment opportunities, and having been cut off
from their prior community during the time of their incarceration.
- With
a stable home environment, it is far easier to continue participation
in alcohol and drug programs, maintain positive relationships with
all family members including children, and to make amends for past
mistakes.
- Many
times, the reason that a former prisoner returns to prison is not
that he or she committed a crime, but that he or she violated terms
of his or her parole, such as failure to meet with the parole officer,
or a failure to notify the parole officer of a new address. Stable
housing decreases the likelihood of such infractions.
- PHAs may choose to be part of the solution to this major issue, or simply continue to be part of the problem. Any kind of blanket prohibition against housing for people with conviction records increases the likelihood that the person released from custody will not find housing, will not find employment, will not connect with his or her family, and will return to prison.
- More
than 600,000 people will be released from prison this year.3
Many will have made good use of their time while incarcerated: learning
a trade, obtaining their GED, receiving treatment for addiction,
and repenting for past mistakes. 64 million Americans (close to
one third of the adult population) have federal or state conviction
records.
2. Meet with Housing/Landlord Associations
- Housing
and landlord associations have the interests of their community at heart.
Be prepared to show the potential excellence of tenants who have conviction
records. Show the policy of refusing to admit someone for an offense
that bears no relationship to his or her ability to be an excellent
tenant decreases public safety as it increases the likelihood of recidivism.
Landlords may be missing out on some great tenants if they blindly stick
to these policies.
- Work with the associations to come to creative solutions. For example, in Madison Wisconsin the state landlord association has worked with the community to identify potential transitional housing for people just released from local jail or prison who would not qualify for public housing, and allows them to work back into the housing system.
3. Get to know other interested parties in your community
- Build
networks with other community-based organizations that are involved
in housing issues, including tenants’ organizations in public
housing complexes.
- Learn
the expertise of these groups, and share your own expertise. Develop
joint strategies for advocating new guidelines with PHAs. Oftentimes
the combined efforts of several organizations can achieve broader goals.
- Arrange to meet with the other groups regularly and make your presence known in your community.
4. Meet with local government officials
- Work with Departments of Parole and Probation. These agencies can be valuable partners in the effort to create reasonable standards and collaborative programming that reinforce public safety and facilitate reintegration.
- Educate local government officials about the policies of your local PHAs and the adverse impact that denying housing to all persons with criminal records has on the community.
- Share the same numbers detailed above about the numbers of people returning from prisons and jails to their communities and, if possible, find the numbers of people returning from prison and jail for your state or local community. Explain that without housing, these people have a minimal chance of returning to society successfully.
- Using material from Package Once of this kit, advocate for changes in local housing legislation that would require PHAs to give people with conviction records a fair chance to find housing.
5. Contact the media
- Write
letters to your local papers about the housing issues confronting people
with criminal records.
- Call
the editorial pages of your paper to offer to write a longer editorial
piece to educate the public about the lack of housing for people with
criminal records, and what this does to their prospects of re-integration.
- Contact your local broadcast news organizations to explain the newsworthiness of the huge and ever-increasing numbers of people coming out of prison and jail. If they are not interested in doing a story right now, make yourself available as a source if they become interested in the future.
6. Gather resources
- Put together a list of all of the various organizations, agencies and individuals in your community who are available to assist people with arrest and conviction records.
1Housing
and Urban Development, 2003. Public Housing Occupancy Guidebook at 54.
2HUD encourages PHAs to “consider applications for residence
by persons with such criminal histories on a case-by-case basis, focusing
on the concrete evidence of the seriousness and recentness of criminal
activity as the best indicators of tenant suitability. PHAs should also
take into account the extent of criminal activity and any additional factors
that might suggest a likelihood of favorable conduct in the future, such
as evidence of rehabilitation.” HUD Notice PIH 96-16(HA), April
29, 1996.
3Travis, Jeremy, 2005. But They All Come Back: Facing the Challenges
of Prisoner Reentry. The Urban Institute Press.
4Human Rights Watch, 2004. No Second Change: People With Criminal
Records Denied Access to Public Housing.
5Welfare and Housing – Denial of Benefits to Drug Offenders,
by Gwen Rubenstein and Debbie Mukami in Invisible Punishment: The Collateral
Consequences of Mass Imprisonment, Marc Mauer and Meda Chesney-Lind, Eds.
6Center for Housing Policy, The Housing Needs of Ex-Prisoners
1996, available at http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/indings/housing/H178.asp.
7Human Rights Watch, 2004. No Second Change: People With Criminal
Records Denied Access to Public Housing at 48.
Resources on Creative Approaches for Advocates
- Wisconsin
South Central Apartment Association. The 700 members of the
South Central Apartment Association iniclude public housing, private
landlords and related interest groups. The association has worked together
to arrive at creative solutions to the housing problem for people with
conviction records, including transitional housing and education for
its members about admissions standards. www.aascw.org.
- Madison
City Laws. The City of Madison, Wisconsin has enacted laws
that include persons with arrest and conviction records as a protected
class. http://www.fairhousingwisconsin.com/Laws_and_Remedies.htm.
See also Package Two
of this kit.
- Ready
to Rent. Oregon offers a 4-6 week program for individuals facing
renting challenges. The classes cover housing priorities, credit issues,
tenants’ rights and responsibilities, rental applications and
screening, communication with landlords and budgeting. http://www.hapdx.org/resident/r2r.html.
Information about this program may be a useful resource for advocates.
- MOMs.
Oakland, California has a program called Maximizing Opportunities for
Mothers to Succeed (MOMs) that identified women who’ve been released
from jail and assists them in reuniting with their children. As a part
of this program the women are housed in special units and provided with
counseling post release. http://www.nicic.org/Misc/URLShell.aspx?SRC=Catalog&REFF=http:
//nicic.org/Library/period217&ID=period217&TYPE=PDF&URL=http://
www.nicic.org/pubs/2002/period217.pdf
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