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HomeMy WebLinkAbout04-05-2023_Open Session_Item 27_Inland Region Housing justice Coalition_Redacted Inland Region Housing Justice Coalition April 5th, 2023 Dear Mayor and Council Members: We urge you to begin the process of repealing ordinance no. MC-1351: The Crime Free Multi-Housing ordinance and voting yes on Item #27 of the agenda. MC-1351 threatens public safety, imposes unfair burdens on tenants and landlords, and raises serious legal concerns. The language of MC-1351 is based on a template program that a private association has marketed to cities across the country. Studies show that this program does not achieve the goals it claims to serve. Instead, it undermines public safety.1 Cities throughout California are also updating and removing these harmful ordinances to comply with the new Right to a Safe Home Act and complying with the United States Department of Justice lawsuits.2 MC-1351 Is Bad For Public Safety There are at least three ways that Chapter MC-1351 threatens public safety: 1. It forces people onto the street. MC-1351 encourages more evictions. It states that landlords must evict—or face fines and even imprisonment—whenever a law enforcement officer requests. Forcing someone onto the street does not ensure that he or she will leave town or refrain from harmful conduct. Rather, eviction causes instability in people’s lives and in the community. 2. It discourages people from reporting crime and endangers domestic violence survivors, crime victims, and innocent household members. MC-1351 associates contact with law enforcement with eviction, so it deters victims, family members, and concerned neighbors and bystanders from reaching out to the police when they witness or are hurt by crime—because doing so can lead to housing consequences. For example, a family that reports a burglary at their home could be threatened with homelessness if an officer investigating the crime begins to suspect a lone house hold member of unrelated drug use and requests eviction on that basis. And the program places tenants in a terrible, dangerous dilemma when their safety is threatened by a co-tenant; in cities across the country and right here in San Bernardino, police enforcing laws like MC-1351 have sent eviction requests to landlords of domestic violence victims who called for help.3 3. It puts up housing barriers. MC-1351 requires landlords to conduct criminal background screenings of all applicants – without giving appropriate limiting guidance on how landlords should consider the results of those screenings.4 In this way, the program encourages greater (and potentially illegal) discrimination against prospective tenants based on information about their pasts. Making it permanently harder for people to make positive change in their lives by standing in the way of their efforts to obtain stable, independent housing benefits no one. Instead, it threatens to drive individuals and families into homelessness. *** 1Emily Werth, Sargent Shriver Nat. Ctr. On Poverty Law, The Cost of Being “Crime Free”: Legal and Practical Consequences of Crime Free Rental Housing and Nuisance Property Ordinances 4 (2013), http://povertylaw.org/files/docs/cost-of-being-crime-free.pdf. 2https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180AB2413 3Linh Tran-Phuong, “Tenants should not fear calling for help,” S.F. Examiner (July 22, 2018), http://www.sfexaminer.com/tenants-not-fear- calling-help; ACLU Women’s Rights Project & the Soc. Sci. Research Council, Silenced: How Nuisance Ordinances Punish Crime Victims in New York 3 (2015), https://www.aclu.org/report/silenced-hownuisance-ordinances-punish-crime-victims-new-york. 4U.S. Dep’t of Housing & Urban Dev., Office of General Counsel Guidance on Application of Fair Housing Act Standards to the Use of Criminal Records by Providers of Housing and Real Estate-Related Transactions (Apr. 4, 2016), https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/HUD_OGCGUIDAPPFHASTANDCR.PDF. In our experience, cities have adopted the type of program codified in ordinance MC-1351 based on stereotypes and fear-mongering about people who live in rental housing even when the data does not show that tenants disproportionately commit crimes. Investment in community resources—not discrimination against people based on their income or housing status—is the best way to ensure public safety. It Contradicts Fundamental American Values Under our system of laws and values, people are innocent until proven guilty. But MC-1351 treats people like criminals and requires landlords to evict them within thirty days of a law enforcement officer’s request, even if they are never convicted of any crime. That means that someone who is unfairly arrested or accused may be thrown out of their housing along with their entire family—even if a jury acquits the person, a court finds there is no basis for the charge, or a prosecutor throws out an unfounded case. It Creates Liability For The City Many local governments have faced litigation challenging programs similar to MC-1351.5 Enforcement of MC-1351 conflicts with a number of federal and state laws, including the Fair Housing Act, the Violence Against Women Act, and California’s recently enacted Right to a Safe Home Act, AB 2413. Ordinance MC- 1351 vague and exceptionally broad definition of “criminal activity”—which encompasses any suspected violation of federal, state, or local law—makes the program ripe for abuse, retaliation, and selective or discriminatory enforcement, all of which may give rise to City liability under the Constitution. Ordinance MC-1351 also puts San Bernardino at risk of losing any federal community development funding it receives. The City is required to affirmatively further fair housing as a condition of obtaining federal funding, but MC- 1351 conflicts with multiple pieces of federal fair housing guidance.6 Unless you repeal Ordinance MC- 1351, the City will be vulnerable to the current civil lawsuit, state and federal enforcement actions, and loss of federal funding. *** For the above reasons, we are requesting immediate action of the San Bernardino City Council to repeal Ordinance MC-1351. This repeal will ensure that the City does not increase homelessness by requiring needless illegal evictions, assist with the decrease of COVID-19 infections, and it will strengthen the safety and economy of the City of San Bernardino. Sincerely, The Inland Region Housing Justice Coalition Inland Region Housing Justice Coalition 5See, for example: Victor Valley Family Resource Center v. City of Hesperia, 5:16-cv-00903-AB-SP (C.D. Cal.); Peters v. City of Wilkes-Barre, No. 3:15-cv-00152-JMM (M.D. Penn.); Markham v. City of Surprise, No. 2:15-cv-01696-SRB (D. Az.); Conciliation Agreement between Assistant Secretary of the Office of Fair Housing & Equal Opportunity and City of Berlin, New Hampshire, No. 01-15-0117-8 (Dep’t of Hous. & Urban Dev., Jan 29, 2016); Briggs v. Borough of Norristown, No. 2:13-cv-02191-ER (E.D. Pa.); Conciliation Agreement between Assistant Secretary of the Office of Fair Housing & Equal Opportunity and Municipality of Norristown, Nos. 03-13-0277-8 and 03-130277-9 (Dep’t of Hous. & Urban Dev. Sept 17, 2014). 6U.S. Dep’t of Housing & Urban Dev., Office of General Counsel Guidance on Application of Fair Housing Act Standards to the Enforcement of Local Nuisance and Crime-Free Housing Ordinances Against Victims of Domestic Violence, Other Crime Victims, and Others Who Require Police or Emergency Services (Sept. 13, 2016), https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/FINALNUISANCEORDGDNCE.PDF.