Coming Home to No House: Criminal Records Constrain Housing Access
By Douglas Evans, Senior Research Associate
Criminal records follow people long after they have served their time and often end up as “permanent punishments.” This leads to many collateral consequences, including the significant impact a criminal record has in severely limiting housing options for people leaving incarceration.
Nearly 1 in 3 people in the United States have a criminal record, and those criminal records impede nearly every part of life. Many people leaving incarceration with criminal records can’t find work, lack stable housing, deal with financial hardships, and face restricted access to college and financial aid. Those under parole supervision must contend with additional living and mobility restrictions as well as random visits from parole officers. Incarceration strains families and relationships and can minimize or monetize (i.e., child support) parental rights. All of this exacerbates the challenges of returning home after a prison sentence. Yet, these barriers are ingrained within the reentry experience and severely limit the pursuit of a positive, stable, and healthy life.
Housing is one of the most crucial human needs and is essential to rebuilding life after incarceration. But people leaving jail and prison face numerous and significant limits to accessing housing: They are prohibited from public housing if they have a conviction for certain sexual and drug offenses. Further, the Federal Fair Housing Act, which protects seven classes of individuals from housing discrimination (based on race, color, religion, disability, national origin, sex, and familial status) does not cover people with a conviction. This means that housing proprietors—owners, landlords, real estate agents, superintendents, building managers—have discretion to select or reject prospective tenants based on any other criteria.
While financial adversities already diminish housing options, background checks can cause further disruption. For a fee to a third party, housing proprietors can run criminal record checks on prospective tenants. Although this may be intended to protect people, the use of flagged convictions to reject applicants does not enhance public safety and fails to recognize the capacity for rehabilitation. Ultimately, criminal background checks for housing access or other purposes, especially several years following an individual’s last offense, is a means of extending punishment indefinitely.
Research Demonstrates the Negative Impact of Criminal Records on Access to Housing
Recent research examining rental markets in New York shows that one-third of real estate agents and more than half of landlords were unwilling to consider an applicant with a prior drug or sexual offense conviction. Although landlords were more open to considering women with a felony conviction and real estate agents were more willing to assist men with a felony, both groups were, not surprisingly, less willing to consider housing seekers who disclosed a conviction for child molestation than for statutory rape or drug trafficking. Similar studies in the Midwest found that race had no effect on housing access because it was overshadowed by criminal history. Certificates demonstrating rehabilitation did increase consideration for housing.
Solutions to Increasing Access to Housing for People with Criminal Records
Some parts of the country are working to address housing instability among people who have been formerly incarcerated. In June, policymakers in New Jersey passed a bill preventing landlords from requesting criminal history information during the application process. Although convictions for murder and various sex offenses can still result in rejection of housing applications, landlords who are suspected of discrimination against people who have previously been convicted of other offenses face fines up to $10,000 and possible investigation. Without federal legislation regarding housing protections for people with criminal records, this type of state legislation is essential to increasing access and ensuring rights to housing.
The cost of housing also poses challenges for many people, even if access to housing exists, so transitional housing is another component of the solution. Those unable to find post-release housing should be afforded ideally up to two years of transitional housing access to allow time to find a job and prepare for their next move. Formerly incarcerated people who have lived in the community for less than two years are more likely to be homeless than those who have been out for more than four years. Exodus Transitional Community has been providing emergency housing—at a hotel in Manhattan and two hotels in Queens—to people released from jails and prisons in New York. The rules for occupancy are strict, but the hotels can hold 450 people and help meet people’s basic needs in addition to offering case management, mental health and substance use treatment, and workforce training. Other New York City organizations that provide transitional housing for people coming out of jail or prison include Osborne Association, Fortune Society, the Doe Fund, the Bowery Mission, and Abraham House. Housing access, whether permanent or transitional, in part affects how long people are detained in jail awaiting their court date.
For formerly incarcerated people, the benefits of housing are innumerable. Suitable housing reduces recidivism and increases the odds of finding employment and accessing health care. Housing is a necessary resource for building or rebuilding one’s life and must be a focus of reentry programs and policymakers looking to implement long-term solutions increasing housing access and reducing recidivism.