California tenants and their families would no longer face mandatory eviction or eviction based on their criminal history or contact with law enforcement under new legislation introduced Friday.
Assembly Bill 1418 focuses on local policies known as “crime-free housing,” which can force landlords to evict tenants accused of breaking the law or refusing to rent to people with previous criminal convictions.
The rules make it harder for renters, especially black and Latino renters, to find and maintain affordable housing, said Councilmember Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood), the bill’s author.
“It’s systemic racism,” McKinnor said. “It’s a way of excluding brown and black people from living in their apartment buildings, in their communities.”
McKinnor drew inspiration for the bill from a 2020 Times study that found that a crime-free housing policy disproportionately affected Black and Latino residents in California.
The Times found that at least 147 cities and counties in California have enacted crime-free housing law or promoted crime-free housing training for landlords — more than a quarter of all local governments in the state — and that these were especially prevalent in low-income communities. growing black and Latino population.
Cities have often used the specter of rising crime rates as a reason to pass the rules. But in some communities, crime was stable or falling when the policies were passed, The Times found, and what increased was the number of black or Latino residents.
Such was the case in Hesperia, a Mojave Desert community of about 100,000 that has seen an influx of black and Latino renters. In 2015, the city passed rules requiring landlords to evict those whom police suspected were involved in criminal activity on or near the property — regardless of whether the allegations led to an arrest, charge or conviction.
At a City Council meeting, a council member described the goal of the crime-free housing rules as “correcting a demographic problem with people committing crimes in this community.” A study by the Department of Housing and Urban Development found that black renters were nearly four times more likely, and Latino renters, were 29% more likely to be evicted under Hesperia’s program than white renters.
Hesperia and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department recently agreed on a nearly $1 million settlement with the Justice Department over allegations that the crime-free housing policy violates federal civil rights laws. It was the first case in which federal prosecutors challenged a city’s crime-free housing ordinance nationwide.
Despite concerns about racial bias, crime-free housing rules often receive strong support from police, prosecutors and politicians who claim they help keep neighborhoods safe, especially in areas with drug and gang problems. Policies vary widely, from those that give landlords police training on criminal background checks and anti-crime tenancy provisions to stricter measures like Hesperia’s.
AB 1418 would prohibit cities from passing the heaviest crime-free housing policy. Under the proposal, cities cannot require landlords to use criminal background checks to screen tenants, evict tenants for alleged criminal behavior without a felony conviction or to evict an entire household when a member is convicted of a felony , among other prohibitions.
A crime-free housing policy that is voluntary for landlords should be allowed to continue. And landlords can continue to screen and exclude tenants based on their criminal history on their own initiative, unless local rules prohibit it. like in Alameda County.
Supporters of AB 1418 say their intent is to ban specific crime-free housing rules they believe are the most discriminatory and trap those who have committed no crime or nuisance.
“It identifies the most common provisions and bans them one by one,” said Marcos Segura, a staff attorney with the National Housing Law Project, one of the main proponents of the legislation.
To become law, AB 1418 would have to pass both houses of the legislature and be signed by Governor Gavin Newsom. If approved, communities with existing crime-free housing policies will have one year to withdraw them before they are deemed non-compliant.
Times staff writer Ben Poston contributed to this report.
