WASHINGTON - Hundreds of thousands of poor people have been denied access to public housing because of past convictions for felonies or misdemeanors that are unrelated to any threat they might pose to other tenants, according to a major new report by Human Rights Watch released Thursday.

The 101-page report, "No Second Chance," argues that public housing authorities are interpreting laws and regulations that exclude applicants with criminal records far too broadly, with the result that needy and otherwise-qualified people are being turned away.

Despite having paid their debt to society, many of these individuals end up among the estimated 12.5 million Americans who have been homeless, living on the streets, in overcrowded shelters, or in transient motels and dormitories, according to the report.

"Everyone deserves safe housing, but these policies yield more miser and desperation than public safety," said Corinne Carey, an analyst in HRW's U.S. program and the report's main author.

Decent and stable housing is essential for human survival and dignity, a principle which is recognized in both U.S. policy and international human rights law.

To realize that principle, the United States provides federally subsidized housing to millions of low-income people who could not otherwise afford homes on their own. There are some 4,000 public housing authorities (PHAs) in the United States that provide federal housing assistance.

U.S. policies, however, effectively exclude hundreds of thousands of needy people with criminal records from applying for public housing, ostensibly to protect existing tenants. Under current housing policies, everyone convicted of a felony – about 3.5 million people over the past five years – is automatically ineligible for public housing for a minimum of five years.

In addition, tens of millions of Americans who have been convicted of misdemeanors, or merely arrested but never convicted of any criminal offense, may also found themselves excluded from public housing, according to the report.

In Pittsburgh, for example, a shoplifting arrest leads automatically to a four-year ban on applying for housing, while in Austin, Texas, anyone convicted of possessing a small amount of marijuana may not apply for seven years.

“Denying these people a home does little to promote the welfare of existing tenants,” according to the report. “But it can cause homelessness or transient living for those excluded – and it can be counterproductive for community safety, as it is difficult to be law-abiding while living on the streets.”

The exclusion of people with criminal records from public housing is often referred to as the “one strike” policy that was developed in the 1990s as an attempt to address drug trafficking, violent crime, and disorder in public housing, particularly in urban high-rise developments.

As passed by Congress, federal law bans outright three categories of people from admission to public housing – those who have been convicted of methamphetamine production in federally-funded housing; those subject to lifetime registration requirements under state sex offender registration programs; and people who are currently using illegal drugs regardless of whether they have ever been convicted for such activity.

In addition, PHAs may deny admission to three other categories of applications – those who have been evicted from public housing because of drug-related criminal activity for a period of three years following eviction; those who have at any time in the past engaged in a sustained pattern disruptive alcohol or illegal drug abuse; and those who have engaged in any criminal activity, if the PHA deems them a safety risk.

In practice, according to the report, which was based on information gained from 42 PHAs across the nation, these discretionary categories are used to exclude a wide swath of people with criminal records without regard to any reasonable basis to believe they may actually pose a risk.

According to the report, two reasons best explain the sweeping nature of the exclusions. First, demand for public housing in the U.S. far exceeds supply, so that state and local governments have an interest in developing ways of disqualifying large numbers of applicants.

“Excluding those with criminal records has proven to be a politically cost-free way to entirely cut out a large group of people from the pool of those seeking housing assistance,” according to the report.

The second reason relates to what the report calls the “widespread belief in the United States that “people who have broken the law do not deserve a second chance and are the legitimate target of policies that are little more than expressions of disdain and hostility.”

In both cases, however, such punitive views may not only be unjust, but counter-productive as well, in that people without fixed and secure abodes may be more likely to resort to crime and blame others for what they consider to be unjust treatment.

“Policies that arbitrarily exclude people from public housing do not advance public safety – they undermine it,” according to the report.

The report notes that the federal government has begun paying more attention to the plight of people who leave prison and are trying to re-enter society by providing temporary shelter. “But even the best-designed re-entry program will fail if those returning from prisons and jails can’t get housing,” according to Carey.

“The United States must address the drastic shortage of affordable housing, particularly in public housing,” the report concludes. But, as a first step, it goes on, Washington and local authorities should eliminate inequities and arbitrariness in the allocation of existing units.

© 2004 OneWorld.net

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