Learn More About Fair Chance to Housing Policies
What’s Fair Chance Housing?
For formerly incarcerated people, there are barriers beyond the high cost of rent that prevent them from acquiring housing. People with criminal records are oftentimes screened out when applying to rent housing due to criminal background checks. Even living with family members is not a solution as it may put their family’s housing at risk. Fair chance housing is legislation that prohibits the blanket discrimination of rental applicants based on criminal histories. It enables people to be judged on the merits of their individual housing applications.
Who’s impacted by discriminatory CRIMINAL background checks?
As the state with the second highest population of people currently in prison or jail in the country, California will need to house formerly incarcerated people as they reenter society in a highly impacted housing market. Oakland and other cities in Alameda County currently have over 8,000 people on probation or parole that need access to stable housing.
What’s unfair about the status quo?
For example, although African Americans make up only 11% of Alameda County (US Census Alameda County July 2018), 48% of probationers in the county are African American. Research has demonstrated that African Americans are more likely to be stopped by police, are prosecuted disproportionately, and are punished more harshly than other ethnic groups. This means a disproportionate number of African Americans are impacted by criminal background checks in housing applications.
What’s the community and public impact?
Incarceration and lack of housing can lead to severely limited economic opportunity, thereby increasing the chances of recidivism. There are an estimated 10 million children nationwide that are impacted by a parent or close relative who are in the criminal justice system. These children suffer from an increased rate of depression, antisocial behavior, drug use, and suicide. In addition, because people coming home from prison have so barriers to finding housing, they disproportionately end up homeless.
What can be done about it?
Pass Fair Chance Housing legislation. Cities like Oakland, Berkeley, Seattle and Portland have already passed Fair Chance to Housing ordinances that are working. In addition, many cities also have “ban the box” legislation to prevent employment discrimination based on criminal background checks.
Other Cities with Fair Chance to Housing Policies
In addition to Oakland, Berkeley, Seattle, and Portland with gold star fair chance housing laws, other cities have a variation of fair chance housing policies like Richmond, California; Urbana, Illinois; Madison, Wisconsin; San Francisco, California; Newark, New Jersey and growing numbers of other jurisdictions.