On Feb. 27, the Connecticut State Assembly’s Housing Committee held a public hearing on a controversial bill (H.B. No. 5242) that would prevent landlords from considering felony convictions, after a certain period of time, when deciding to accept or decline a tenant’s application. 

Naturally, battle lines were drawn during public testimonies, as former felons and prison rights and reform advocates lauded the bill, and as landlords and concerned citizens stood opposed.

Tanya Hughes, executive director of Connecticut’s Committee on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO), expressed her support for the bill.

“Housing security is essential for any type of success in one’s life,” said Hughes. “Too often those who are formerly incarcerated continue to struggle due to their conviction. Our system is supposed to be rehabilitative, instead, it is punitive.”

All in all, 58 of the written testimonies submitted to the meeting supported the bill, while 117 opposed.

The language of the bill itself stipulates that denying any applying tenant an offer or rental negotiation on the grounds of their felon status would be deemed a discriminatory practice, so long as the felony conviction occurred longer than three years prior to the applicant’s submission. It would also exempt landlords from renting to former felons within their first year of release.

The housing bill would require that landlords consider the nature and severity of the crime committed, the time elapsed since the applicant’s conviction, its potential impact on their prospective tenancy, as well as whether or not the applicant can be deemed rehabilitated before denying their application. Landlords also would not be able to refuse housing based on any past arrests that weren’t followed by convictions, any probation violations that would not be considered criminal acts sans probation, any convictions that have been erased from their record, or any crimes applicants were convicted of as minors.

If a landlord sought to deny the applicant, they would first have to provide written notice that the application is under review as a result of their criminal status, and can request relevant information and context regarding the applicant’s crime, the length of time elapsed since it was committed, the applicant’s employment status, and any evidence that can speak towards the applicant’s tenant history, character, and likeliness to reoffend. If an applicant is denied after review, and feels they were discriminated against on the grounds of their criminal record, they can submit a form to the CHRO to investigate whether the applicant was unfairly denied.

The law would not apply for landlords who are renting out rooms of their own personal homes, or for applicants to public housing who have been previously convicted of producing meth in public housing or who are registered sex offenders.

This requirement for property owners to screen a tenant themselves was an especially unpopular aspect of the bill for landlords. Naomi Freeman, a self-proclaimed “Mom and Pop housing provider,” stated her support for the spirit of the bill and that she strongly believed “housing should be afforded for everybody, and rehabilitation is 100 percent possible,” but had a list of concerns that led her to oppose it in its current form.

“Where it gets dicey though, are the, ‘who is rehabilitated and who is not,'” said Freeman. “I have worked with programming in New Haven, an excellent program that houses people that have served their sentences and they have wonderful support, however, we still have ran into so many challenges and expenses with the people we’re housing.”

Freeman said that she has encountered property damage, and even an instance of one of her formerly incarcerated tenants breaking into a young woman’s apartment and intimidating her. Freeman said the young woman was part of another housing program and was not a felon herself, but had to be evicted for her own safety, as she said state stipulations left her with little other choice.

“So the complexities can get really, really difficult, and that ruined her record right from the get-go,” said Freeman. “I think an appropriate solution is not having this on the backs of private housing providers, we’re not qualified.”

Freeman said that private landlords can’t be expected to effectively evaluate tenants’ level of rehabilitation, and that it should be the onus of state-supported housing providers instead of private ones. 

“This is a state issue, this [bill] will not solve the problem,” finished Freeman.

State Senator Antonio Felipe (D- Bridgeport) asked Freeman if she, hypothetically, would accept tenants that were screened by the state and deemed rehabilitated.

“It’s still too simple,” said Freeman. “That would be one of the steps for sure, but it’s still too simple.”

Freeman also brought up the point that while employers get tax benefits for taking in former felons, landlords do not.

“We get penalized in a sense, because if we do have issues and we’re forced to protect our properties, the only method really available to us is eviction, and then we have legal aid come in and make what could have been a simple eviction, into a long, extended and expensive process,” said Freeman. “It opens us up to liability.”

Nick Postovoit, who described himself as a “concerned citizen,” voiced his opposition on the grounds that the bill violates landlords’ property rights.

“I believe it’s imperative to voice my concern that this is infringing upon the rights of property owners not allowing them to make rental decisions based on their own discretion,” said Postovoit. “The essence of my opposition stems from the belief that any law infringing upon individual property to benefit others is morally wrong, unfair and unconstitutional.”

Postovoit said the bill would create a “one-way entitlement” that favors tenants ahead of owners. He said the bill should safeguard the rights of both tenants and property owners.

On the flip side of the coin, several former felons spoke in support of the bill, sharing their own success stories of redemption and societal reintegration, as well as the struggles faced by their limited housing options. One such person was Robin Ledbetter.

Ledbetter had a troubled childhood, and was a runaway from state custody at the Hartford  YWCA when she was involved in the stabbing murder of a Hartford taxi driver at the age of 14. She was sentenced to 50 years. The murder occurred in 1996, and since then Ledbetter has insisted that she herself was not the one who stabbed the driver, but rather the act was done by her accomplice and alleged mastermind of the plan, Lucis Richardson. Since then, she has also worked on redeeming herself.

In 2018, York Correctional Institution, the prison where Ledbetter was incarcerated, started a rehabilitation program called Women Overcoming Recidivism Through Hardwork (WORTH). The program focused on providing younger female inmates with counseling, therapy, and mentorship. Ledbetter was one of six inmates chosen to be a mentor in the program. After serving 25 years of her sentence, Robin Ledbetter was released.

“Reintegrating back into the community after 25 years was extremely difficult, but by far the biggest obstacle that I faced was housing,” said Ledbetter. “Although I worked a full-time job since the third week of my release, have consulted and worked for several prestigious schools and organizations, and was willing to pay up to six months rent in advance, no place was willing to rent to me as a tenant.”

Ledbetter said she was at risk of homelessness at that time, bouncing between friend’s places and hotels. She was finally able to get an apartment when her 76-year-old mother agreed to co-sign on a lease. She has since lived there for 2 years, where she said she has never made a late payment, never had any complaints filed against her and has made great relationships with her neighbors. She is now concerned again, however, because she is engaged, and the man she plans to marry also has a criminal record.

“Because of the fact that not only myself but my fiance has a criminal background, we have maintained separate addresses,” said Ledbetter. “In the last four months of visiting several different properties with a good job, good credit and a spotless record where I live, no landlord wants to rent to the both of us.”

Ledbetter said that their current housing impasse has put the pair’s marriage plans on hold. She also said that she loves where she currently lives and doesn’t want to risk losing it if she has no other alternative.

“Have you ever been faced with the choice to leave the home where you feel safe, or marry the person you love and face housing insecurity?,” Ledbetter asked the Housing Committee. “Housing is a basic human right, and a criminal record does not strip you of your humanity.”

Homelessness is a threat that looms larger to the recently incarcerated than others. According to a 2022 study published by the National Institute of Health, 570 of every 10,000 formerly incarcerated people experience housing insecurity, compared to only 21 of every 10,000 of the general population.

Another former felon spoke to the struggles of finding housing after her release, Leslie Caraballo. Caraballo had a similar upbringing to Ledbetter; she too grew up in a dysfunctional family, and was molested as a child by her brother. She was one of four people convicted of first-degree manslaughter for her role in the death of 18-year-old Alexandria Clouse-Desmond, a runaway from a state psychiatric center at the time. Carabllo was 19 at the time of her conviction, and living in an apartment leased by the State Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.

Caraballo, like Bedford, has worked her hardest to put her troubled past behind her. Released in 2017, she is now a Smart Justice Leader with the ACLU, a single mother to her 4-year old daughter, Bella, and even ran as a candidate in last year’s Bridgeport School Board election. Caraballo said she has been living in a rough neighborhood in Bridgeport since her release, and has been denied from any apartment she has applied to, despite her income or tenant history being non-issues. Caraballo said she wants to give her daughter access to a better neighborhood and better education, but can’t because of her criminal history.

“Why am I not worthy of better?,” asked Caraballo. “More importantly, why is my child not worthy of living in a good area? My past should not dictate my child’s future.”

Sen. Rob Sampson (R- Walcott) told Caraballo that he was struggling with his thoughts on the bill. Sampson said that he recognized the need to reintegrate formerly incarcerated people back into society and help them transition to being productive citizens, but that he finds it difficult to leverage Connecticut property owners towards making decisions they may otherwise not with their property. Sampson posed to Caraballo a question.

“Obviously different people are different, and some may come out of incarceration reformed and others may not,” said Sampson. “Certainly, some crimes are worse than others. I guess the question I have is; where would you put the line, where it would be acceptable, where you would understand why someone might not accept someone if they had a criminal record?”

Caraballo told Sampson that she herself was convicted of a “heinous crime.” She said that prison was where she learned that she needed to make a change in her life, to become a better person than the environment around her had conditioned her to become.

“This bill is going to help, it’s not saying that we want to put restrictions on what landlords want to do,” said Caraballo. “It’s huge.”

The highest priority question posed by landlords for the Housing Committee, then, is how they can solve the problem of housing and reintegrating the formerly incarcerated, without putting landlords at increased risk of liability.

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