Everyone deserves a fair shot at an apartment

Last month, Joseph Bryant walked into a leasing office in Brooklyn to start his search for an apartment. At 35, he is eager to find a place of his own and, more than that, a welcoming space for his kids to visit. But moments later, he walked back out, having learned that his application was not welcome. The agent had dashed Joseph’s hopes — it hurt more than his first breakup, he said — and he felt totally alone.

Sadly, he’s not. He is one of nearly 750,000 New York City residents — that’s 11% of the adult population — who are effectively locked out of housing because they have an arrest or conviction record. And because of demonstrated systemic racism across the criminal legal system, the vast majority of people involved in it — 80% — are people of color like Joseph.

Ninety percent of landlords use criminal background checks to evaluate prospective tenants. Research shows that a conviction record reduces by more than 50% the probability that a landlord will allow a prospective tenant to even view an apartment.

This sanctioned discrimination proceeds despite the fact that 78% of convictions between 1980 and 2019 were misdemeanors. What’s more, almost two-thirds of New Yorkers with conviction records have not been convicted of a new crime in the last 10 years.

Of course, it’s not only about individuals. When a person with a criminal record is denied an apartment, whole families can suffer. Since nearly half of all children in the United States have at least one parent with a record, background screenings surely put many New York City children already facing obstacles at risk for homelessness.

We are the leaders of Hudson Companies, which has developed $2.8 billion of real estate in New York City, including more than 7,800 residential units for people of all means, and Osborne Association, a nearly century-old nonprofit that annually serves 10,000 individuals and families who are directly affected by incarceration and that Hudson supports. Our organizations do very different things, but we are united in our belief that we are stronger when everyone has a chance at high-quality, affordable housing. That’s why we support ending the use of conviction records in assessing housing applicants.

As reliance on background checks has persisted, many have accepted the notion that screening out people with conviction records will increase safety. This is demonstrably false. When we shut people out of housing they end up in overburdened shelters or on the street. Being unhoused makes it nearly impossible to live a productive life, while it’s also incredibly costly to taxpayers. Ultimately, it’s the inability to meet basic economic needs that can drive violence and threaten public safety. Eliminating barriers to housing improves safety for everyone. Even without background checks, landlords will still have other forms of tenant screening, including references and income verification.

We cannot let fearmongering win the day. Not all developers want to further punish people with a record. They are our family members and our neighbors. They want what Joseph wants — to get their lives back on track, to stop being judged by their pasts, and to be accepted as people capable of change. We can also affirm that housing is the single most determinative factor in successful reentry into the community. A criminal sentence has an end date but the collateral consequences for people reentering — being unhoused, unemployed, unlicensed — can last a lifetime.

Most importantly, given the well-documented, disproportionate number of people of color in our criminal justice system, denying people housing based on convictions amounts to race-based exclusion. Conviction records are a byproduct of America’s racist system of mass incarceration and thereby perpetuate inequity.

The City Council can halt these shameful practices by passing a bill currently under consideration, the Fair Chance for Housing Act. The bill would make it illegal for landlords to factor in criminal backgrounds when considering a tenant, except for individuals on the sex offender registry. It wouldn’t apply to homeowners renting single rooms and two-family accommodations or to entities like NYCHA that are required by federal law to conduct background checks.

It has the potential to interrupt the intergenerational transmission of poverty and homelessness. With the foundation of safe and stable housing, more New Yorkers like Joseph can seek meaningful work, care for their families, attend to their health, and thrive. Housing for everyone will make all of us safer.

We stand together, and with organizations and New Yorkers across the city, in strong support of this legislation. We call on the Council to pass it, and the mayor to sign it, immediately.

Read the article in its original format here.