TMI Senior Researcher and Statistician
Every year, more than 700,000 people are released from incarceration and seek housing. Because of systemic racism within the criminal legal system, a disproportionately high number of formerly incarcerated people or people with any criminal legal contact are Black. Although obtaining housing is a necessary step to reintegrate into society and lead a successful life, the widespread use of criminal history restrictions in public and private housing bars people with arrest or conviction records from becoming housed. Barred from Housing examines the racially discriminatory effects of criminal history restrictions in housing and the threat this practice poses to housing security, family reunification, and community safety.
What we learned from reviewing the literature paints a challenging picture for people with criminal records who are seeking a home.
It is very common for public housing providers and private landlords to have overly broad and restrictive criminal background check policies that look back 10 or more years at a person’s record and use arrest records alone, even if there is no conviction record. These overbroad screening polices may violate the Fair Housing Act by having unjustified discriminatory effects on Black prospective tenants.
The increased use of artificial intelligence in tenant screening can exacerbate discrimination by using inaccurate information, including racially biased information, and sending landlords a “risk score” for tenants that obscures the underlying information and decreases a tenant’s ability to dispute a decision.
Fair housing testing research generally suggests that Black prospective tenants with a criminal record face worse treatment from landlords and lower access to housing opportunities than white prospective tenants with a criminal record.
In addition, evidence shows that criminal history is not an effective predictor of whether someone will be a good tenant who abides by the terms of their lease and pays rent on time.
In the current federal political landscape in which the Trump administration has taken steps to gut fair housing enforcement, it is especially incumbent upon state and local governments, as well as private landlords, to enact non-discriminatory policies that increase access to housing for deserving tenants, including those with criminal records.
Black people have been disproportionately impacted by the negative consequences of criminal history restrictions because of the structural racism embedded within the criminal legal system. That same structural racism gets transported and amplified in the housing sector. Exclusionary housing policies lead to unjustified discriminatory effects. Less restrictive and non-discriminatory housing policies can reduce homelessness, improve public safety, reunify families, and combat racial residential segregation.
