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This past Monday, Seattle City Council unanimously passed legislation that will help reduce the number of people who are homeless. With this new piece of legislation, we are aiming to make our city a place where we support individuals who have paid their debt to society by helping to reduce the barriers to obtaining rental housing.
The Fair Chance Housing ordinance is the first of its kind in the nation, and is long overdue. While retaining all rights to establish and enforce expected standards of conduct, landlords will make their decisions based on personal references and tenant history, rather than rejecting a prospective tenant because of past criminal history.
People deserve access to housing; it is a basic necessity for every one of us. When people are housed, they have a chance to stabilize their lives by searching for employment, reconnecting with family, and addressing their health needs. Without housing, they are struggling to survive each day.
From a public safety standpoint, evidence shows that recidivism is greatly reduced when those who have committed crimes are accepted back into a supportive community and are housed. Simply put, when more people are stabilized, we are all safer and healthier.
Under current Washington State law, a landlord can use criminal records to screen tenants for up to seven years after the individual is released from jail or prison. Since affordable housing is in short supply, and the rental market is increasingly competitive in Seattle, refusing applicants based off of a criminal record is an all too common way to effectively keep a person returning from prison unhoused. “Clean record required” and “no felons” are common conditions seen in a Craigslist ad. One man who testified recently in front of our Council said he had been turned down over forty times for a rental unit because of his history. Fortunately, one landlord gave him a break and the man has now completed both his college and advanced degrees, is gainfully employed and giving back to his community.
As I stated in my recent blog, “From a race and social justice perspective, the statistics are even more alarming. The data varies from state to state, but the strong pattern is adult black males have felony convictions on their records five to seven times more frequently than adult white males. Arrests and convictions for drug-related crimes continue to be disproportionately frequent and severe for black males.” This is blatantly unfair and requires upstream investments in education and job training. But in the near term, people need to be housed.
Landlords seek individuals with a clean record, assuming this will guarantee that the tenant will be a good one. However, there is no empirical data that shows having a past criminal record will determine a person’s ability to be a good tenant in the future.
When a criminal record dogs a person for years after a sentence is served, his or her chances to resume or attain a new stable life are drastically reduced. Many people consider a “look back” at criminal history to be another way to subtly enforce Jim Crow laws thereby continuing disenfranchisement and segregation. Thankfully, we don’t see "Whites Only" and "Colored" signs anymore that enforced racial order. Yet we continue to see and act against subtle ways that promote “other-ness.” This legislation is another Seattle step toward inclusion.
Thank you to the Office of Mayor Murray, Councilmember Herbold, the Office for Civil Rights and all the tenant and criminal justice advocates who participated in the development of the legislation. It is already changing the dialogue in a positive way.
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