California county passes law banning criminal background checks for housing, becoming first in US

A California county has turn into the primary within the nation to move a regulation banning landlords from conducting felony background checks on candidates, a big transfer meant to curb housing discrimination in opposition to previously incarcerated folks.

The Alameda county board of supervisors within the San Francisco Bay Space voted Tuesday to undertake a Honest Probability housing ordinance, which might prohibit landlords in personal and public housing from utilizing felony information when contemplating potential tenants. Whereas just a few cities have handed comparable measures, and a minimum of two counties have adopted partial restrictions, Alameda is the primary county within the US to broadly prohibit this follow, advocates say.

The Honest Probability regulation – passed with 4 sure votes and a fifth supervisor abstaining – additionally bans landlords from promoting that individuals with felony histories shouldn’t apply, and it establishes that a person with a felony file can’t be banned from transferring in with a member of the family. The regulation, which would require a second vote to be formally adopted, applies solely to the unincorporated elements of the county, which embody San Lorenzo, Castro Valley, Sunol, Fairview and Ashland; the cities of Oakland and Berkeley, that are a part of Alameda county, beforehand handed municipal legal guidelines banning felony background checks for housing.

The initiative is a part of a rising motion in California and throughout the nation to undo the cruel therapy of individuals with felony information, with tens of tens of millions of individuals within the US denied entry to jobs, housing, advantages, training and different fundamental rights as a result of previous convictions. In California, an estimated 8 million folks have felony information, roughly one in 5 residents. Greater than 5,000 persons are on probation or parole in Alameda county.

The laws additionally comes amid a worsening homelessness disaster within the state, which analysis suggests is exacerbated by the housing limitations folks face when leaving jail. A College of California, Berkeley, survey in 2019 estimated that 73% of individuals residing in Oakland encampments have been previously incarcerated, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Out of 9,700 unhoused folks counted in Alameda county’s 2022 homelessness survey, 30% mentioned that they had skilled interactions with the felony authorized system prior to now 12 months, with 7% immediately attributing their homelessness to incarceration.

“There may be this direct pipeline from jail on to our streets and into homelessness,” mentioned Margaretta Wan-Ling Lin, govt director of Simply Cities, a company that backed the ordinance. “Our nation goes by a reckoning round our historical past of racism and mass incarceration insurance policies, and an necessary a part of repairing that hurt is eradicating the stigma and structural discrimination in opposition to folks with a felony file.”

When housing suppliers refuse tenants primarily based on their information, it may additionally forestall households from reuniting after a jail sentence, advocates mentioned.

“I dedicated a criminal offense and went to jail, and I paid my debt. So why punish my household?” mentioned Lee “Taqwaa” Bonner, a coverage outreach chief with the Honest Probability marketing campaign and a housing advocate with the group All Of Us Or None. When he acquired out of jail, he mentioned, he couldn’t reside along with his relations as a result of his file. “You begin dropping your religion in humanity, and it places you in a state of despair. How can I be a productive father and a productive son, if I can’t get a great evening’s sleep?”

Bonner famous that when folks re-enter society, they’re usually required to reside of their house cities however wrestle to discover a place to just accept them: “You may’t reside the place you have been born and raised.

“Let’s put aside our politics and do our half to finish homelessness,” he added.

Lin, who can be a researcher at UC Berkeley, carried out a preliminary survey of 41 previously incarcerated folks final 12 months to evaluate the Honest Probability ordinances that have been handed in Berkeley and Oakland in 2020; 33% of respondents mentioned they have been capable of finding housing on their very own or with household as a direct results of the brand new protections, she mentioned.

Seattle and Portland have additionally handed Honest Probability legal guidelines. Prepare dinner county in Illinois adopted a regulation meant to stop discrimination by requiring landlords to finish an individualized evaluation, however they’re nonetheless allowed to make use of felony information. The town and county of San Francisco’s Honest Probability ordinance is proscribed to inexpensive housing, and it additionally permits landlords to contemplate convictions which are thought of “immediately associated” to the security of the property. California legislators have additionally launched a state invoice to ban background checks for housing.

Alameda county’s new ordinance permits landlords to overview the intercourse offender registry. Whereas some property homeowners have opposed the regulation, arguing that background checks are an necessary security measure, proponents observe that landlords nonetheless have broad discretion in how they choose tenants, and that the ordinance permits tenants to be thought of primarily based on the deserves of their functions.

The brand new regulation is because of take impact when the county’s Covid eviction moratorium expires on the finish of April.