By Amarachi Ngadi
I recently held a homeless outreach specialist position, helping direct services to people in need here in New York. The client who impacted me most was a woman the same age as my sibling, just 22, who had been moving across shelters and spending her nights on train station floors for at least two years. When I completed her verbal background check, my client made me aware that she had multiple arrests in the past three years. When I met her, I was first able to put a face to some of the statistics I’d heard about how homelessness and criminalization feed each other in a city that denies housing to those with criminal records and sweeps street homeless New Yorkers back into the justice system.
Recently, though, New York was able to begin to break this cycle with the passage of the city’s Fair Chance for Housing Act and the state’s Clean Slate Act. These are important steps forward, and jurisdictions across the country should consider adopting similar legislation.
These bills prohibit housing discrimination on the basis of criminal record by sealing certain conviction records after a specific period of time. This is desperately needed: New Yorkers experiencing street homelessness are more likely to have repeated interactions with the criminal justice system, as opposed to those who live in shelters. Unhoused individuals face higher felony and misdemeanor conviction rates, and because they are perceived as unstable, most are not released on their own recognizance pre-trial. These interactions have a detrimental impact on their ability to obtain housing and establish stability in their lives. So many of the people panhandling on the MTA, including the older women of color selling candy bars to feed their children, are fighting against a system that constantly obstructs their pursuit of stable housing.
Homelessness and recidivism are inextricably tied for most unhoused and recently released New Yorkers. In 2022, one young woman, imprisoned at 17, was released after serving three years for a felony charge. After release, her attempt to find housing with the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) was hindered, not by lack of financial means, but because of a criminal charge that she had already spent three years paying for. This woman represents just one of roughly 2.1 million adult New Yorkers who have a criminal conviction of some kind. NYCHA is the largest and most utilized resource for those seeking affordable housing in New York City, and when NYCHA shuts women like her out of their affordable housing process, that means they lose access to New York City’s biggest housing resource. As a city notorious for its lack of affordable housing, with the second largest prison in the nation, New York cannot afford for its public housing officials to reject applicants on account of their criminal history, without even an explanation.
The state claims that those released from prison have “paid their debt to society” and are ready to return to the community, but the barriers those with a criminal record face in attaining housing and employment have historically continued to segregate them even after release. Thankfully, lawmakers at the state and municipal level have recently started to weaken these barriers with the passage of the Fair Chance for Housing Act and the Clean Slate Act.
With these laws, New York legislators have pushed our city forward by properly addressing the connection between homelessness and criminal arrests. The establishment of these laws after years of advocacy finally enshrine the right of recently incarcerated individuals to have housing and reintegrate into society.
New York joins several states that have already passed a similar legislation on the state level, including our neighbors in New Jersey and the similarly diverse and largely populated state of California. These states are leading the way in fair housing legislation, and other states should join in showing our country the positive impacts of reform and how opportunities for building a life post-incarceration have proved to decrease recidivism rates.
It’s true that existing renters and NYCHA residents have made public their concerns that the Clean Slate Act and the Fair Chance for Housing Act would jeopardize their safety. While their fears should be taken into account when making any policy that concerns them, these bills will not make buildings less safe, because they only apply to those with nonviolent offenses. In fact, these bills will help keep New Yorkers safer, as adequate housing has been proven to reduce recidivism.
While landlords may say that they deserve the right to refuse tenants with any criminal record in order to keep their properties safe, refusing to rent or sell to an applicant because of their race, sex, or other identity factors is just as heinous as refusing an applicant due to non-violent and non-drug related criminal history: an injustice that can keep New Yorkers locked into homelessness. The decision of who to offer housing to can no longer be left to landlords without oversight, as their efforts have led to perpetuating homelessness and increased recidivism. It is time for landlords to be held accountable for discriminating against nonviolent offenders just like they would be held accountable for any other type of housing discrimination.
As my client, and thousands of New Yorkers like her, remain at risk of returning to the train station, there has never been a better moment to assure New York citizens that their past will no longer keep them from building a secure and stable future. Overt housing discrimination within the largest public housing authority in the nation is a cruel and unusual punishment placed on an already marginalized demographic, and with the passage of new legislation, New York is showing the rest of the country the way past historic discrimination. As New Yorkers, we owe it to those who have been historically discriminated against for their nonviolent criminal records to advocate for nationwide housing protections. Now it’s up to the rest of the country to follow suit.
Amarachi Ngadi is a first-year MPA-PNP student at Wagner, specializing in Advocacy & Political Action. She currently works as a legislative fellow for a New York City Council Member and hopes to address the ongoing homelessness crisis in this city.