Arkansas landlords warned on barring ex-con renters

Tionna Jenkins with the Clinton Health Matters Initiative speaks Friday at the state Capitol during a state Fair Housing Commission news conference.
Tionna Jenkins with the Clinton Health Matters Initiative speaks Friday at the state Capitol during a state Fair Housing Commission news conference.

The Arkansas Fair Housing Commission is warning landlords against policies that ban renters who have criminal histories.

Last spring the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development issued guidelines that demonstrate how blanket discrimination policies against former convicts can violate the Fair Housing Act.

Last week the Fair Housing Commission began a tour of the state to inform landlords and tenants about how the anti-discrimination laws apply.

"I think that most landlords in Arkansas are probably unaware of this guidance at this point," said Jordan Rogers, an attorney with the Arkansas Access to Justice Commission. "I think most of them will be surprised to learn that there's the potential for liability under the Fair Housing Act for discrimination against people with a criminal record."

The guidance federal officials issued in April says each housing applicant who has a criminal history must be considered on a case-by-case basis. Applicants who have sex-crime convictions or who have been charged with the manufacturing of drugs may be exempt from this requirement.

The guidance also says landlords must distinguish between an arrest and a conviction and says an arrest cannot be used as evidence of criminal behavior.

HUD released the guidelines after a Supreme Court ruling in 2015 allowed the enforcement of fair-housing laws using the "disparate impact theory," which allows plaintiffs to challenge housing practices that have a discriminatory effect without having to prove the landlord had a discriminatory intent.

It was a ruling Carol Johnson, executive director of the Fair Housing Commission, called "monumental for civil rights in the fair-housing world."

According to Housing Commission officials and Rogers, who also has been acting to spread awareness of the laws to landlords, no litigation has been filed in the state over such discriminatory practices. However, the commission currently has about 10 open investigations into landlords potentially in violation of the law, Johnson said.

"We want to make sure that there are housing opportunities for everyone. When people are released from prison, they have a lot of different needs," said Johnson. "You've got to have a house, and you've got to have a job. You've got to have the two most critical aspects of re-entering society."

Johnson emphasized the increasing urgency for meeting these needs as parole revocations across the state have increased in recent years, sending hundreds of violators into an already at-capacity prison system.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, as many as two-thirds of those who exit prison are rearrested within three years. But governmental studies consistently show that a stable housing environment for ex-convicts can reduce their probability of reoffending.

"If you truly want to fight recidivism, we've got to provide housing opportunities," Johnson said.

"I see people every day who have come from prison and don't have homes. They ask me for money just to have lunch. If I have it, I give it without judgment," said state Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock. "I'm of the belief that somebody has been reduced to have to ask me for it. I'm equally of the belief that we have to do everything we can to put them in a position to where they don't have to ask me for a dollar."

In 2013, Elliott and other lawmakers passed Act 1190, which required the Arkansas Department of Community Correction to study areas that could reduce the state's recidivism rates. The fair-housing agency's efforts, Elliott said, are an important extension of that mission.

Landlords overall have been adaptive to the new guidelines, said Gail Blucker, executive director of the Landlords Association of Arkansas, which represents up to 800 members across 13 chapters in the state.

While the guidelines don't require landlords to accept any tenant with a criminal history, they require landlords to consider things like the nature of the crime, how long ago the conviction was and the proposed living arrangement.

"If we have a duplex or we have an apartment complex or something like that, we'll look at things a little different than if we have houses that are individual single-family homes," Blucker said. "It will have to be considered on a case-by-case basis."

"I know I've got some members of our group that have mobile homes sitting out on lots by themselves, and they're OK with sex offenders," she said.

In recent months, Blucker has been traveling to some of the association's chapters, working with landlords to revise their screening policies. Many landlords were unaware of the new guidelines and of the ways their policies had been affecting an entire class of people.

"I think through this new ruling we've been able to take it and make them aware," she said. "If someone embezzled money from an insurance company when they were 25, and now they're 45 and have a good job, you don't hold that against them."

Metro on 01/22/2017

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