Pernicious housing rule would worsen homelessness, make Texas less safe

We keep hearing how concerned Governor Greg Abbott has been over homelessness, but a rule proposed at the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) would make matters worse.

TDHCA has suggested forbidding access to supportive housing for two years for anyone convicted of a nonviolent felony, for three years for certain offenses involving guns, retaliation, or obstruction, and imposing lifetime bans for people convicted of sex offenses, any "murder-related offense," sexual assault, or arson. Even a Class A misdemeanor would get a one-year ban.

What's the point of this except to exclude people from supportive housing options who would otherwise end up homeless? Would we be safer if felons, sex offenders, etc., are all desperate and living on the streets, or if they're housed with services and support that give them a chance to turn their lives around?

In a story I'd missed when it came out, the Houston Chronicle reported the agency has no "statistics showing there was a crime problem at TDHCA-backed housing" and does not even track that information. So this is clearly a leap-before-you-look situation.

Grits first wondered if this was proposed to undermine anti-homeless initiatives in the big cities, sabotaging them so the governor could later say they didn't work. Then a rumor reached your correspondent saying the rule may be a favor to a donor who opposes a specific development. In the Chronicle story, TDHCA said they're responding to complaints, but wouldn't say by whom. Who knows where it came from? 

What we do know is that felons leaving TDCJ already struggle mightily to find housing, particularly those with special needs who would most benefit from supportive housing options.

This proposal makes Texas less safe and should be rejected, adamantly, by the TDHCA board.

To communicate with TDHCA about the proposal, email comments to htc.public-comment@tdhca.state.tx.us. Deadline is tomorrow (Friday, Oct. 9) by 5 p.m..

MORE: See related Texas Tribune coverage.

Texas quietly rescinded ban on food stamps for first-time drug offenders

The Houston Chronicle reported (Aug. 19) on a change in the law which received little publicity. Brian Rosenthal's story opened:

Texas soon will allow tens of thousands of residents convicted of drug crimes to receive food assistance from the federal government, joining almost every other state in ending a ban that once covered the entire nation.

Legislation approved during this year's legislative session will make Texas the 44th state to opt out of the ban, which former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, inserted into President Bill Clinton's 1996 welfare reform package.

Under the new policy, which takes effect Sept. 1, first-time drug felons will be able to get food stamps as long as they comply with the conditions of their parole and do not commit a second offense while receiving assistance. They still will be ineligible for cash help through welfare.

Residents convicted of non-drug-related felonies will continue to be able to get benefits, as they were never included in the ban.

The change could help many of the 56,860 Texas residents currently on Community Supervision for drug offenses, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, and many more who already have cycled out of parole. It is unknown how many of them may seek food stamps, however.

Advocates hailed the move as a landmark reform for Texas, saying the scant attention it received during the session belied the transformative effect it could have on those most in need of help.

"It isn't about rewarding people convicted of crimes. It's about making sure that they do not become repeat offenders, and to do that, we need to give them some help," said state Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, who spearheaded the change via a standalone bill and then, after that failed, through an amendment to a noncontroversial bill. "This will give them an opportunity to regain respectability by going out into the marketplace and making a living."

The bit about "ending the ban" in Mr. Rosenthal's lede is a bit strong. The restriction of the change to a first offense will limit the new law's effectiveness. ("Diminished the ban," perhaps? "Inched away from a total ban"?) Texas may have formally opted out of a federal ban (hurrah! we're 44th!), but then the Legislature of its own accord retained it for a large class of drug offenders. Regardless, the new law will help some people and provide a floor to build on in coming sessions.

State by state database of collateral consequences

A reader informs me of a new national inventory of collateral consequences resulting from criminal convictions, from employment to government benefits to education to civic participation, with state-by state specifics. The website was created by the American Bar Association and the National Institute of Justice. Here's an interesting excerpt from the Project Description articulating why the project was undertaken:

Persons convicted of crime are subject to a wide variety of legal and regulatory sanctions and restrictions in addition to the sentence imposed by the court. These so-called “collateral consequences” of conviction have been promulgated with little coordination in disparate sections of state and federal codes, which makes it difficult for anyone to identify all of the penalties and disabilities that are triggered by conviction of a particular offense. While collateral consequences have been a familiar feature of the American justice system since colonial times, they have become more important and more problematic in the past 20 years for three reasons: they are more numerous and more severe, they affect more people, and they are harder to avoid or mitigate. As a result, millions of Americans are consigned to a kind of legal limbo because at one point in their past they committed a crime.

Some collateral consequences serve an important and legitimate public safety or regulatory function, such as keeping firearms out of the hands of violent offenders, protecting children or the elderly from persons with a history of abuse, or barring people convicted of fraud from positions of public trust. Others are directly related to the particular crime, such as registration requirements for sex offenders, driver’s license restrictions for those convicted of serious traffic offenses, or debarment of those convicted of procurement fraud. But many others apply across the board to people convicted of crimes, without regard to any relationship between crime and consequence, and frequently without consideration of how long ago the crime occurred or what the individual has managed to accomplish since. Many consist of nothing more than a direction to conduct a criminal background check, and an unspoken warning that it is safest to reject anyone with a record. When convicted persons are limited in their ability to support themselves and to participate in the political process, this has both economic and public safety implications. When society is discouraged from recognizing and rewarding genuine rehabilitation, this has moral and social implications as well. When particular restrictions have no apparent regulatory rationale, and cannot be avoided or mitigated, they function as additional punishment, though without due process protections.

Of particular relevance in the present context is the fact that collateral consequences are scattered throughout the codebooks and frequently unknown even to those responsible for their administration and enforcement. The Supreme Court has recognized that when a person considering a guilty plea is unaware of severe consequences that will inexorably follow, this raises questions of fairness and implicates the constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel. See Padilla v. Kentucky, 130 S. Ct. 1473 (2010). When the obligations and restrictions imposed as a result of conviction are unknown to those individuals directly affected by them, it invites noncompliance with the law. When legislatures and executive officials are unaware of the full range of penalties and disabilities imposed by law on convicted individuals, it is unlikely that they will take the opportunity to reconsider them, in whole or in part.

As an example of how vast the number of collateral consequences are in practice, go to Texas and search on "Employment" and "Any Misdemeanor," and 116 different state and federal statutory and regulatory restrictions are listed.