By Ava Pittman

Tacoma Housing Authority (THA) envisions a future where everyone has an affordable, safe and nurturing home, where neighborhoods are attractive places to live, work, attend school, shop and play, and where everyone has the support they need to succeed as parents, students, wage earners and neighbors. THA’s mission is to provide high quality, stable and sustainable housing and supportive services to people in need. It does this in ways that help them prosper and help our communities become safe, vibrant, prosperous, attractive, and just1 . To fulfill that vision and that mission, THA attempts to make informed judgments about whether to admit or deny applicants for its housing. It seeks to balance its mission to house people who need the housing while keeping it safe and enjoyable by excluding those who pose an undue risk. Like most other landlords, THA’s screening policies consider an applicant’s criminal history as a sign of risk for this purpose. THA also uses screening policies for admission to its rental assistance programs that help clients pay the rent to private landlords on the private rental market. This paper describes THA’s review of these uses of criminal history. It recommends some changes to THA’s screening policies. These recommendations arise from the review’s answer to the following questions: ● to what extent is an applicant’s criminal history a useful predictor of future tenant behavior; ● is excluding an applicant due to criminal history otherwise excluding a qualified tenant unnecessarily; ● does the use of criminal history as a screening criterion result in an undue and disproportionate exclusion of persons of color; ● the extent to which housing persons with criminal histories make a community, the justice-involved individual, and their families more successful; ● can changes to THA’s screening policies make THA’s housing more accessible to persons with a criminal history without incurring undu To help answer these questions, THA consulted the following sources: ● the research literature; ● THA’s current practices and the results; ● current practices of other public housing authorities, and the results; ● THA residents; ● THA staff; ● THA’s Landlord Advisory Group; ● THA’s liability insurance carrier. THA’s review of its use of criminal history as a screening criterion arose from related discussions in Pierce County. In late 2016, the Center for Social Innovation, a national research and training project addressing racism and homelessness, invited Pierce County to take part in a research study to identify the nexus of race to homelessness in Pierce County. They call the project, Supporting Partnerships for Anti-Racist Communities (SPARC). It included interviews with people who have or are experiencing homelessness in Pierce County. During these interviews, participants voiced that their past criminal history was a barrier to securing housing. Nationally, research tells the same story that: people with conviction histories face discrimination in many facets of life, including housing. In September 2017, the Vera Institute of Justice invited THA to participate with other public housing authorities in a new initiative, Opening Doors to Public Housing. The U.S Department of Justice funded this initiative. The initiative sought to help housing authorities assess how to safely increase access to stable housing for people with conviction histories. The Vera Institute of Justice provided THA with technical assistance, data from national research, and valuable substantive expertise in assessing that data. THA’s Department of Policy, Innovation & Evaluation (PIE) led this review. This paper conveys PIE recommended changes to THA’s screening use of criminal history.

Tacoma, WA: Tacoma Housing Authority, 2020. 76p.

By Vera Institute of Justice

Millions of people transition into the community from jails and prisons every year but face signifcant obstacles to securing safe, affordable housing. These barriers contribute to the revolving door of homelessness and incarceration. People who were formerly incarcerated are 10 times more likely than the general public to be unhoused, with a rate of 203 people experiencing homelessness per 10,000 people. The relationship between homelessness and incarceration is cyclical, as homelessness and housing instability increase the likelihood of future criminal legal system involvement: People who are unhoused are more likely to interact with police and are 11 times more likely to be arrested than people with stable housing. Viewed another way, access to stable and affordable housing substantially increases the likelihood that a person returning home from prison or jail will be able to receive support from their family, fnd and retain employment, rebuild supportive social networks, and avoid additional convictions. These improved outcomes and living conditions are relevant and crucial to the whole community: When people who are reentering their communities are housed and supported, the community is strengthened and public safety is improved. The United States has nearly 3,300 public housing authorities (PHAs) that serve approximately 1.2 million households, yet they are often inaccessible resources for people released from incarceration and in need of a safe place to live. At present, exclusionary criteria govern much of the country’s public housing that bar people who were formerly incarcerated from moving back in with their families—families who are often eager to reconnect and to help their loved ones reintegrate into society. These admissions criteria affect local public housing developments as well as federal housing choice vouchers, commonly referred to as Section 8, which provide rental assistance to low- and moderate-income families. Following the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) guidelines, all PHAs must place permanent residency exclusions on people who are required to register on the sex offender registry for life or who have been convicted of producing methamphetamine in federally assisted housing. For other types of crimes, housing authorities exercise their individual discretion when developing their admissions criteria.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice • Office of Justice Programs • Bureau of Justice Assistance , 2022. 7p.