Presidential hopeful Kamala Harris backs legislation making it easier for people with criminal records to get housing.
WASHINGTON — California Sen. Kamala Harris is introducing legislation to relax barriers to public housing for some people with criminal records, partnering with New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the bill.
The bill set to be introduced Wednesday touches multiple priorities for Democrats, including criminal justice reform, housing equity and homelessness. It also comes as Harris is in a competitive race for the Democratic presidential nomination, where candidates have been jockeying to affiliate themselves with OcasioCortez, the progressive Democratic freshman star.
The Fair Chance at Housing Act of 2019 would enact a number of protections for tenants and seekers of public housing.
It would ban “one strike” policies that allow public housing authorities to evict a tenant for a single, sometimes minor crime. Instead, it would require a review that considers factors such as prior records or severity of the offense.
The bill would also protect families from being evicted for crimes committed by a guest without anyone in the family’s knowledge. It would ban drug and alcohol testing of tenants without cause, and would raise the standard of evidence regarding criminal activity for public housing authorities to use in deciding whether to evict a tenant or reject a prospective one.
The bill would also require that tenants be allowed to appeal evictions.
To help exoffenders get on their feet, the bill would give public housing authorities funding to help house people with criminal records and allow for $10 million of bonus funding to homeless service providers under the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Continuum of Care program.
Harris and OcasioCortez argue that the bill would reduce recidivism by improving housing options for people leaving prison and would cut homelessness by limiting evictions.
“Too many people become involved in our criminal justice system and serve their time only to return home to face additional barriers to employment, education and housing,” Harris said in a statement. “I am proud to work with Congresswoman OcasioCortez to ensure formerly incarcerated individuals and their families have access to safe and affordable housing as they transition back into their community.”
The bill earned praise from the NAACP and the National Low Income Housing Coalition, among other housing advocacy organizations.
The legislation comes as San Francisco’s homeless population has risen 30 percent since 2017. In the city’s most recent homeless count, 25 percent of those who responded said they had spent at least one night in jail or prison in the previous year, and 12 percent were on probation or parole when they became homeless.
People who have been incarcerated are 10 times as likely as the general population to be homeless, according to the nonpartisan Prison Policy Initiative. In New York City, 54% of people released from state correctional facilities went straight into the city’s shelter system in 2017, the Coalition for the Homeless found.
While Congress did pass bipartisan criminal justice reform legislation last year, the bill faces long odds in a Republicancontrolled Senate. Still, under questioning from OcasioCortez in May, HUD Secretary Ben Carson acknowledged that the federal government could reevaluate policies at public housing developments in favor of “more flexibility,” and agreed that access to housing does decrease former inmates’ recidivism.