The move is the latest in a growing number of actions by local governments nationwide to make it easier for formerly incarcerated people to find housing.
The new law is meant to help renters like Lee “Taqwaa” Bonner, who was turned away by multiple East Bay apartment complexes after getting out of prison in 2016. Bonner couldn’t move in with family members because their leases wouldn’t allow tenants with felony convictions. So like many other parolees, heWhile serving 30 years for a second-degree murder charge, Bonner, 56, had started a program to mentor underserved kids.
At the urging of tenant advocates, elected officials in the Bay Area and beyond have in recent years begun adopting “fair chance” laws that limit when renters like Bonner can be denied because of past convictions or arrests., with few exceptions. San Francisco has as well. And outside the Bay Area, places including Seattle, Portland, New Jersey and Cook County, Illinois, which encompasses Chicago, have put restrictions on running criminal background checks for prospective tenants.
During a Board of Supervisors meeting in December, Xavier Johnson, director of policy justice at the Just Cities Institute, praised Alameda County’s ordinance as a way to ease its chronic homelessness crisis.The ordinance would not apply to properties with four units or less where an owner lives in the property as their primary residence. And all landlords still would be allowed to search sex offender registries to screen applicants.
Daniel Bornstein, an attorney representing Bay Area landlords, worries fair chance ordinances clear the way for “a scenario where someone who is given the opportunity to occupy a unit harms another person” in an apartment complex. Instead, he suggested the ordinances should only prevent landlords from denying tenants based on convictions that are over 10 years old.Bonner couldn’t afford to wait a decade to find a home.
If Alameda County follows through with its ordinance, Bonner said the next step is to ensure officials follow through with enforcing the rules. One way is to compel landlords to remove criminal background questions from all rental applications.
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