Fair Chance in Housing

What happened?

On December 20th the Alameda County Board of Supervisors (BOS) passed the Wilma Chan Fair Chance Housing Ordinance. Based on the Oakland Fair Chance Housing Ordinance, it prohibits public and private property owners from using criminal background checks to evaluate an applicant for rental housing. Since this is the County BOS it will only apply in unincorporated parts of Alameda County. 

Earlier today I saw an attorney for property owners talk in the SF Chronicle stating that he didn’t think it was a good idea because screening criminal backgrounds allowed property owners to determine if an applicant would be a positive addition or disruptive. Without getting into the weeds of how systemic racism has disproportionately criminalized communities of color, let's take a look at one fact. After looking over a handful of property owner industry websites, I haven’t been able to find data that supports the idea that screenings reduce the risk of criminal activity. Does the illusion of safety justify the negative impacts it has on a large portion of society?

According to a Californians For Safety and Justice report, 1 in 5 living Californians has a criminal record. 20% of all Californians. This number jumps higher in specific communities and zip codes. Looking at Alameda County Probation’s numbers we can see that Oakland has the highest concentration of people on probation in the entire county at 4,401. Diving deeper we see that within Oakland the zip codes 94605 and 94621 have the highest number of people on probation. These are also predominantly working-class neighborhoods of color. Other zip codes with more affluent and whiter residents have less than 100 probationers.1

My Experience

I write about this because in 2019 I completed parole and tried to find housing on my own, then with a friend. While on parole one of my agent’s requirements was that I stayed with my mom or another family member. During the two years under supervision, I worked part-time jobs while going to school and couldn’t afford to live on my own even if I wanted to. We had a tiny one-bedroom rent-controlled apartment in Fruitvale where we had 2-5 people living at any given time. I would leave early and stay out late to do my schoolwork or regular work because it was too crowded to focus. By the time I got off parole, I was working full-time and completing my last community college units, so I was excited to apartment hunt. There was one problem. Almost every listing I saw either requested background checks or explicitly stated people with criminal records were not accepted.

My friend and I were able to find a property owner who didn’t ask for a background check. Considering the home was on the other side of the street beside a freeway, I imagine there’s a reason the property owner was lenient. In early 2020, my partner and I decided to move in together but we had the same problem. Oakland was in the process of passing the Fair Chance Housing Ordinance but learned it wouldn’t go into effect for months. Thankfully we connected with a nice leasing agent in a building we liked who told us it wasn’t a big deal if we put the lease under one person’s name and once the ordinance was in effect we could add my name to the lease.

By this time I had worked for two Oakland City Council Members, a few campaigns, and served on many boards including the Alameda County Community Corrections Partnership. If finding housing for someone like me who, I believe, is on the straight and narrow, then how is anyone else supposed to find housing? There is no recourse for many when you are denied. People can always apply for certificates of rehabilitation but it takes years before you can apply and the process is daunting. It would be misleading for people to say criminal checks are fair 

The Outcome

The truth is that background checks make it harder for people to be successful when returning to their communities. These screenings wouldn’t necessarily screen out bad tenants, but people trying to follow all the rules and build a new life. I’m glad that the BOS passed this legislation and I hope that in the next few weeks it passes its second hearing. People deserve a second chance but we will never achieve it with people supporting systems that make those opportunities difficult to achieve.