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New York Times
13-05-2025
- New York Times
Under ‘Crime-Free Housing' Laws, Families May Be Evicted for Minor Offenses
Catherine Lang was evicted from her apartment outside Chicago after the police saw her swerving in traffic and charged her with driving drunk. A jury found her not guilty, but by then it was too late. Dalarie Hardimon was evicted after the police chased a man speeding in her van through a residential neighborhood. And Catherine Garcia was ordered out of the townhouse she and her sons had lived in for 20 years. Their offense? Making too many 911 calls. Most of them came from Ms. Garcia's intellectually disabled son. The three women lived in Illinois cities that have adopted what are known as crime-free housing laws, local ordinances that empower the police and landlords to evict tenants who are accused of breaking the law. The laws were promoted as a way to clear out violent criminals, drug dealers and nuisance tenants who made life miserable for their neighbors. But an investigation by The New York Times and The Illinois Answers Project shows that many cities in Illinois have turned crime-free housing programs into a blunt instrument to oust families for virtually any alleged infraction, no matter how minor. In the most comprehensive statewide review to date, the news organizations examined cases in which renters were found to have violated the ordinances in 25 Illinois towns. Reporters interviewed dozens of landlords and tenants, and gathered police records. Ultimately they found more than 2,000 enforcement incidents across the state from 2019 to 2024. City officials ordered landlords to evict tenants in nearly 500 of those cases. The outcomes were unclear in most of the remaining cases because none of the cities tracked what happened after they sent violation letters. Landlords can seek an eviction even when cities do not demand it. About a third of the 2,000 violation letters cited serious crimes. Landlords were ordered to evict or take other actions against renters caught in possession of drugs or charged with violent felonies. Sometimes, there were multiple accusations and a long trail of police interactions or neighbor complaints. But a majority of the cases fell short of that. More than 1,300 were for misdemeanors or noncriminal offenses, many of which were never pursued by prosecutors. Most cities have crafted their laws so they can evict tenants even if the renters are never convicted of a crime, or never proved to have harmed their neighbors. City police departments have ordered landlords to evict people over commonplace charges including shoplifting and driving while intoxicated. Renters have lost their homes based on accusations that they neglected their pets, failed to keep a close watch on their children and, in one case, eavesdropped on a neighbor. In many cities, a single violation was enough to trigger an eviction. Enforcement of the laws often appeared to have little to do with protecting people from criminal activity next door. Hundreds of the infractions occurred somewhere other than at the rental property, including at gas stations and stores, or after traffic stops that occurred miles away from a tenant's home. It did not matter if the person accused was the leaseholder. Entire families have been forced from their homes after a child living there was accused of a crime, or a visitor was arrested. In at least five cases, renters were flagged because they had called 911 to get help or to report a crime that had been committed against them. Officials in more than a dozen municipalities said that their crime-free programs were fair and that the laws had led to drastic reductions in 911 calls and reports of nuisances in rental communities. Several noted that they had modified their programs over the years, often in response to complaints from landlords and renters, to ensure that only serious infractions led to evictions. Matthew Eiskant, the chief of police in Belleville, said entire neighborhoods in his town, just outside St. Louis, have been 'revitalized' by evicting just a few people. 'Our citizens are overwhelmingly in support of crime-free housing,' Chief Eiskant said. But many cities, including Belleville, still have ordinances that allow them to seek evictions against virtually anyone the police suspect of breaking the law. Four landlords interviewed by The Times and Illinois Answers said they had each tried to help at least one tenant fight an eviction they thought was unnecessary or unfair. Enforcement records revealed many more cases in which landlords challenged evictions in hopes of keeping good tenants. Mary Aviles, a landlord in Midlothian, a Chicago suburb, said she had called the police when she noticed a tenant had been leaving dogs caged in the home's garage. While concerned about the dogs, she was shocked when the police ordered her to evict the tenants without warning; she felt the offense had not endangered others. If she did not evict her tenant, Ms. Aviles faced fines up to $750 a day or losing her license to run a rental property, common penalties in most cities. 'It completely goes against the fundamentals of our justice system,' she said. Housing advocates have long argued that the laws are discriminatory because they disproportionately fall on low-income residents and people of color. Tenants in several states have sued and won six-figure settlements against cities, some of which were accused of evicting Black tenants based on little more than vague suspicions called into the police by neighbors. For years, Kate Walz, a lawyer in Chicago, and other housing advocates have sought legislation that would limit or ban crime-free housing programs statewide. The latest effort, a bill being debated in the Illinois State Senate, would create sweeping regulations for the laws and make it more difficult for people to be evicted if they have not been convicted. The bill is scheduled for a Senate committee vote this week. Ms. Walz said that the legislation would not solve all the challenges of crime-free housing programs, but that it would help protect renters from overzealous enforcement. 'There's no supervision. There's no education in terms of eviction laws or fair housing laws that they need to abide by,' Ms. Walz said. 'Why would you do any other kinds of law enforcement, right?' The Expansion of crime-free housing Fear helped spread crime-free housing laws across Illinois. In 2000, the Chicago Housing Authority began tearing down Cabrini-Green, a massive public housing complex that had been painted as a haven for crime. Elected leaders in the small cities encircling Chicago worried about where the displaced renters would move. Officials in dozens of towns adopted the ordinances and launched training programs for landlords. Training presentations featured pictures of Cabrini-Green and slides warning that criminals would 'grow like weeds' and 'choke out healthy plants.' Ms. Walz described a kind of arms race among the cities, which rushed to start programs so they would not be communities where supposed lawbreakers felt welcome. More than 100 cities adopted the laws. One in four Illinois residents now lives in a place that compels renters to sign a lease contract that states a tenant can be evicted if accused of a crime. Many cities require tenants to sign crime-free leases that are so broad that virtually any perceived violation could be grounds for eviction, even if the allegations are never fully investigated or proved. In Orland Park, renters must sign a contract that says they can be evicted after a single arrest. 'Proof of violation shall not require a criminal conviction,' the contract reads. In DeKalb, a university town about an hour outside Chicago, rental contracts state that tenants can be evicted for any allegation, from a violent felony to a municipal code violation, which can include setting off fireworks or giving alcohol to a minor. The tenant is held accountable for anyone visiting the household, even if the tenant was unaware of the guest's behavior, or unable to control it. By 2015, enforcement in some Illinois cities had gotten so aggressive that state legislators passed a law barring city officials from evicting victims of domestic violence for calling 911. Some towns had been counting domestic assault reports at a given address and evicting everyone living there, including the victims. Despite the reform, The Times and Illinois Answers found hundreds of instances in which cities ordered tenants evicted after a domestic violence call to 911, most of them in Belleville. Mr. Eiskant said his program has never evicted a victim of domestic violence. But advocates point out that it is often difficult for the police to determine who the aggressor is in a domestic violence case. And sometimes a person accused of abuse is the primary breadwinner, meaning that if he or she is evicted, the entire family may have to leave. Beyond the 2015 law, there is virtually no statewide oversight of crime-free housing ordinances, leading to vast differences in how cities apply the laws. Among the 25 cities examined by The Times and Illinois Answers, most opened fewer than 10 crime-free cases a year from 2021 to 2024, and ordered evictions about a quarter of the time. With an average of 84 cases a year, Belleville was among the most aggressive. It required an eviction in every case. And then there is Oak Forest, a city of 26,000 people just south of Chicago, where the police pursued an average of 178 cases a year, more than double any other Illinois city over that period. 'Just Arresting People Wasn't Fixing the Problem' The Manchester Court Apartments rise up from a tangle of strip malls and residential buildings that make up the second ward of Oak Forest. Hundreds of people live in the complex, many of them blue collar workers who take the commuter train to neighboring suburbs for cleaning and industrial jobs. For years, the cluster of three-story brick buildings had a reputation for being rundown and dangerous. During a recent visit to the complex, Jason Reid, who retired in March as the chief of police in Oak Forest, described how it once operated like an open-air drug market, with shadowy figures loitering day and night. Residents, he said, were fearful of going outside. These days, children wait for the morning bus with their parents, and play in the parking lot after school lets out. 'You wouldn't have seen that 15 years ago,' Mr. Reid said. 'Just arresting people wasn't fixing the problem.' In recent years, Oak Forest police officials have sent a steady stream of letters to property managers at the complex, informing them if tenants had run-ins with the police. The letters arrived more than once a month on average from 2020 to 2024; at least six cases required an eviction. Across the city, crime-free enforcement was even more aggressive during that period. Since 2019, the city has sent about 1,000 notification letters to landlords, enough to give one to half of the rental units in the city. Hundreds of the notification letters were about noise complaints; 32 were about animal welfare. At least two-thirds were for misdemeanors or noncriminal violations. Like most cities, Oak Forest did not track how many notifications prompted landlords to evict tenants. But in at least 30 cases, city officials included language demanding that a landlord evict a tenant, usually over an alleged felony, a review of the letters shows. Housing advocates said that cities like Oak Forest, in their rush to crack down on crime, have forced people out of some of the region's only affordable housing and put them at risk of becoming homeless. In 2021, Oak Forest police found a man overdosing on the floor of his apartment. The next day, police department officials ordered the man's landlord to evict him. Last year, the police told a landlord to evict a family after a teenager who lived in the home was accused of stealing cars in Chicago with his friends. And at least four families were evicted after someone in the home was caught by the police smoking marijuana. They all had just a few weeks to move out and come up with the money to move somewhere else. Oak Forest's ordinance grants landlords, but not tenants, the opportunity to appeal the city's decision to issue a crime-free housing violation. Tenants can be left in the dark because city officials send violation letters to landlords and make no effort to communicate with tenants, or explain why the tenants have been targeted for eviction. In cities that do offer renters a chance to appeal, tenants are generally on their own to hire a lawyer. In many cities, the person ruling on appeals is the police chief or the crime-free housing officer, who would have ordered the eviction in the first place. Gail Diop, a former resident of Palatine, a suburban community northwest of Chicago, tried for weeks to convince the police her family had not violated the city's crime-free housing laws in 2016. In the end, she had to hire a lawyer and sue the city. Only then did she discover why the city had sought to evict her: A friend of her teenage son had been arrested on shoplifting charges at a Walmart, and had falsely given the police their home address as his residence. The city stopped the eviction and offered Ms. Diop $10,000 for the error. Ms. Diop eventually left Palatine because she was concerned her son would be targeted. 'How can I respect officers of the law that would do people like this?' she said. 'I'm a nuisance, I can't call 911' The appeals hearings in Granite City, a steel town near St. Louis, offer a window into what residents experience when they try to fight evictions under crime-free housing laws. Audio recordings of 22 hearings from 2018 and 2019, obtained by lawyers who were suing the city, show that most tenants who were appealing did not have a lawyer or fully understand the proceedings. Some said they did not know what they or their family members had been accused of, or what they needed to prove to avoid eviction. The hearings during that period were overseen by Scott Griffith, a former attorney hired by Granite City, who died in 2023. The hearings — as many as 12 a day — lasted about 10 minutes. Tenants were told, often on the spot and for the first time, that they were expected to cross-examine the police officers themselves and to offer any legal objections to evidence that the officers had entered into the record. Reginald and Monique Harris appeared lost at the start of their hearing in 2018. Their son, who was 18 at the time, had been arrested on charges of having cannabis in his pocket. They said they didn't know anything about the incident because he was living on his own across the state line, in St. Louis. At one point, Mrs. Harris burst into tears as she begged the hearing officer not to uproot the entire family, including her 11-year-old daughter. Mr. Griffith rescinded the city's order to evict. Less than a year later, the couple was back. Their son had been accused of banging on a McDonald's drive-through window so hard that it broke. He had left his drink inside, but workers ignored his knocks because they had closed. It had been more than a year since the Harris's son lived in the home. But old documentation still tied him to the address, and the family once again faced the prospect of being evicted. The family took time away from work to go to the hearings and gathered mail and documents to make their case. 'We're the kind of folks you want in your neighborhood,' Mr. Harris said during an impassioned eight-minute speech at the hearing. 'This is not just residency on the line for me, this is my life,' he added. The family was let off the hook. Many tenants choose not to appeal, because of the hassle or the belief that they would not win. Some cities do not provide for an administrative appeal, leaving tenants no option but to wait for a formal eviction notice and to fight it in court. That's the decision Catherine Garcia faced in 2023, when West Chicago officials told her she would have to move out of the modest rental she had lived in for 20 years. She moved out to avoid a formal eviction. Ms. Garcia had raised her four boys in the townhouse. She loved the tree-lined streets and the relative quiet of being outside the big city. She said she always paid her rent on time. But problems emerged as her sons grew up. Things came to a head in 2023, when two of the three adult sons who still lived with her began struggling with their mental health. One son, diagnosed with a severe intellectual disability, constantly called 911 for issues like losing his mother's phone number, or suffering a headache. Ms. Garcia said his frustrations sometimes erupted into violent fits and he would punch walls or push his family members, forcing them to call the police. The other son had spiraled into a depression. He often threatened to end his own life, and Ms. Garcia felt she had no choice but to call 911 each time. By the fall of 2023, officials in the West Chicago Police Department had had enough. The Garcias had called 911 more than 100 times in a year, and were labeled repeat offenders under the city's crime-free housing law. Ms. Garcia's landlord gave her 10 days to move out. Her youngest son found the eviction notice posted on the door. She could not afford the deposit on a new apartment, so she made plans to move into a hotel room across town for $700 a week. It cost twice what she had been paying for a fraction of the space, which she planned to share with three of her adult sons. She spent days throwing out items her family had accumulated over 20 years: Christmas decorations; her sons' youth sports jerseys; bedroom furniture her grandmother had left her; and the China cabinet, which she broke into pieces so the city could haul it away. 'I was just in depression and denial,' she said. 'How could this be happening?' The night before the Garcias were to move into the hotel, a friend offered a vacant home she owned in town. It was a financial lifeline, but the house needed work. The bathroom was unfinished and the furnace was on its way out. They spent a month sleeping on mattresses on the dining room floor. A year later, Ms. Garcia, who works at a milk distribution company and gets financial help from her sons and their father, bought the house. She said her family was finding some balance, but there have been times when she felt she needed help and was afraid to call the police. 'I'm like, 'oh my God, I'm a nuisance, I can't call 911,'' she said. This article was reported in partnership with Big Local News at Stanford University. Reporting for this article was supported by a grant from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation. Funders have no control over the selection and focus of stories or the editing process and do not review stories before publication. The Times retains full editorial control of this story.
New York Times
13-05-2025
- New York Times
Finding Stats, and Stories, About ‘Crime-Free Housing' Laws
I met Catherine Lang at a Starbucks in Tinley Park, Ill., one day last summer. We exchanged niceties, acknowledging that it was, in fact, a bit weird to tell one's story to a total stranger. Then she shared with me, in great detail, how crime-free housing policies had changed her life. In 2021, when Ms. Lang was 31, she was arrested and charged with driving drunk. The police told her landlord that, because of her arrest, she would need to be evicted from her apartment in Tinley Park within a few weeks. Months later, a jury found her not guilty. But by then, Ms. Lang had moved into her parents' home a town over and was saving up to buy a place of her own. She was done with renting — it no longer felt safe, she said. For Ms. Lang, it seemed the interview was an opportunity to share her side of the story. For me, it was the culmination of months of reporting. It was the first time I had been able to sit down in person with someone who had found themselves on the wrong side of what are known as crime-free housing laws, local laws that can penalize renters for contact with law enforcement. In an investigation published today, The New York Times and The Illinois Answers Project found that, from 2019 to 2024, there were more than 2,000 cases across 25 Illinois cities in which city officials told landlords that their renters were in violation of crime-free housing ordinances. These ordinances are meant to keep neighborhoods safe by evicting dangerous criminals. But more than 1,300 cases, we found, were based on misdemeanors or noncriminal offenses. We found nearly 500 cases in which tenants — and sometimes, entire households — had been evicted from their homes between 2019 and 2024, in many cases for minor crimes or allegations that had not been fully investigated or that had gone unproven. The idea for the story came across my desk almost two years ago. I received a tip from a lawyer about a woman who was suing the village of Richton Park for evicting her under crime-free housing laws after she called the police to report a shooting on her block. At the time, I thought her story would be one of very few. But when I dug into crime-free housing policies in Illinois, I learned that housing advocates, who say the ordinances disproportionately affect people of color and low-income residents, had been trying to compile enforcement cases in the state for more than a decade, to little avail. Most of them told me it was difficult to track down people who had been affected by crime-free housing enforcement. I spoke with lawyers who had helped their clients sue cities over particularly egregious cases. One woman was threatened with eviction after her son's friend gave the police her address as his residence when he was arrested on shoplifting charges. Each story made me more eager to find a systematic way to track crime-free enforcement cases in Illinois. I looked at every city in the state that had a law written into its municipal code that penalized landlords or tenants for contact with law enforcement. Fifty-five of those municipalities had crime-free housing programs that were run by the city or local police departments, which trained landlords to closely monitor criminal or nuisance activity in rental properties. I filed records requests in every one of those towns. Thirty cities denied or did not respond to requests made through the Freedom of Information Act, or said they did not keep records of ordinance enforcement. When municipalities did respond, the records often included enforcement letters informing landlords of criminal or nuisance activity, eviction case records and internal reports from city and police officials. The records were a start, but they were often incomplete or had been redacted to exclude tenants' names and demographic information. The advocates were right: It was difficult to get in touch with people personally affected by crime-free housing. Tenants often left their homes after receiving a 10-day notice from the city or their landlord, leaving no paper trail. When they were evicted through a court order, eviction records typically did not cite crime-free housing as the basis for the case. And, in many cases, the pain and embarrassment of losing a home was just something people did not want to talk about. I drove around the suburbs of Chicago, knocking on doors and leaving fliers on porches, asking if people felt they had been wrongly evicted and offering my contact information if they wanted to share their story. I spent hours at courthouses taking notes on eviction and criminal cases. And I sent dozens of direct messages to people on Facebook and Instagram. Ms. Lang was the first of what would be a number of other interviews. We cataloged dozens of cases in which tenants had had their housing threatened over offenses committed by someone other than the leaseholder. I spoke with tenants who had been forced to live in their cars or crash on friends' couches while they tried to find a new place to live. I also spoke with supporters of crime-free housing programs who pointed to the hundreds of cases in which tenants had been flagged for repeat problems or dangerous and violent behavior. The main arguments for strengthening crime-free housing programs hinge on a belief that cases like the hundreds we found were the exceptions, not the norm. Crime-free housing was intended to keep neighborhoods safe. Our investigation contributes to a conversation about whether that model, which can sweep up people not yet proven guilty of alleged crimes, is doing more harm than good. Reporting for this article was supported by a grant from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation. Funders have no control over the selection and focus of stories or the editing process and do not review stories before publication. The Times retains full editorial control of this story.
New York Times
13-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Six Ways Cities Are Trying to Keep Rental Properties and Tenants Safe
This spring, as lawmakers in the Illinois State Senate debated a bill that would restrict local programs known as crime-free housing, hundreds of witnesses showed up to share their views on the proposed changes. City officials and police chiefs argued that ordinances governing the programs, which can require landlords to evict renters who have had contact with law enforcement, should stay as they are. Aggressive ordinances are needed, they said, to help the police oust drug dealers who set up shop in apartment buildings, and to compel landlords to deal with problems at their properties. Housing advocates and renters spoke in support of major changes, pointing to multiple instances of discriminatory and unlawful enforcement. Landlords also pleaded for further regulation, telling senators they had no interest in acting as the enforcement arm of the police. It is a debate that has intensified over the past three decades as the number of crime-free housing programs spread from a handful of early adopters to more than 2,000 municipalities across 42 states. An investigation by The New York Times and The Illinois Answers Project found that in recent years, hundreds of people have been evicted in Illinois, many of them over minor infractions that occurred nowhere near their homes. Sometimes people were threatened with eviction after they called 911 for help. Over the years, many state and local governments have amended their ordinances to try to avoid such outcomes, often with mixed results. Some cities have looked to alternative strategies to keep rental properties and their tenants safe. Here are six of them. 1. Protect Victims of Domestic and Sexual Violence In 2015, Illinois passed statewide legislation prohibiting what was found to be one of the most troubling unintended consequences of crime-free housing programs: The ordinances sometimes punished the victims of crimes. In many municipalities with these laws, the police order a landlord to evict a tenant after receiving a set number of 911 calls from or about a specific apartment; without much investigation, everyone in the household is forced to move. Victims of domestic violence were losing their homes after reporting abusive partners. Some survivors, fearing eviction, avoided calling the police for help. The 2015 legislation made it illegal to use crime-free housing laws against renters who called 911 to report incidents of domestic or sexual violence. Iowa and Pennsylvania made similar changes after the evictions of battered women in those states were publicized. But the new provisions have not adequately protected victims, according to many people who originally fought for the changes, because police officers still must decide whether to categorize an incident as domestic violence. A recent report issued by a coalition of housing advocates in Illinois found that in many municipalities, domestic violence reports were still triggering evictions. In the Chicago suburb of Rolling Meadows, for instance, a majority of the removal orders in 2023 were prompted by domestic violence calls. In Belleville, in Southern Illinois, domestic violence 911 calls led to more than a hundred eviction orders from 2021 to 2024. 'Ten years later, we're still seeing discriminatory enforcement,' said Emily Coffey, who worked on the report as part of her job at the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights. 'We're still seeing enforcement against survivors of domestic violence,' she said, 'even though it's clearly a violation of state and federal law.' 2. Prohibit Evictions Based on 911 Calls A New York State law passed in 2019 required municipalities with crime-free programs to protect people who call emergency services for any reason. 'Despite their intent to aid communities, overly broad ordinances have instead had a harmful chilling effect deterring victims of violence and crime from accessing police assistance and have jeopardized public safety,' the legislation states. The law dictates that any renter in the state has the right to contact emergency services without reprisal, and it protects landlords from being fined or from losing their license if they don't evict a tenant based on the number of calls to the police. The American Civil Liberties Union of New York maintains a 'Know Your Rights' page about the law on its website, with a link to its services and a message for both renters and landlords in case an eviction order is prompted by calling 911: 'You can bring an action in court for damages or for the eviction to be undone.' 3. Limit Enforcement to Serious Crimes Cities that aggressively enforce crime-free housing laws can evict tenants for the violation of virtually any law or municipal code. In some cities, setting off fireworks or allowing a minor to drink a beer could lead to an eviction. In 2019, California issued statewide regulations limiting the enforcement of crime-free ordinances to serious offenses. The state prohibited cities from initiating evictions based on overly broad definitions of crime. Faribault, Minn., tried something similar after the A.C.L.U. accused it in a lawsuit of discriminating against Black residents, including a growing Somali population. As part of a 2022 settlement, Faribault agreed to revise its ordinance, which now spells out the specific offenses that can lead to an eviction. John Sherwin, who became Faribault's police chief as the settlement was being finalized, said the city of about 25,000 was small enough that each time an offense at a rental property occurred, his officers checked with him about whether it warranted a crime-free action. 'We are not evicting for anything less than a felony,' Chief Sherwin said. 'I think this is just a smarter way to do it. This ordinance is for dealing with what's causing the most social harm in the community, and those are serious felonies.' 4. Require Due Process and Oversight In Richton Park, 30 miles south of Chicago, Diamond Jones and her family were ordered out of their home after calling the police multiple times in 2022 to report shootings and threats against them. At the time, the city's crime-free housing program had no appeals process. Ms. Jones later sued, and as part of a settlement reached in 2025, Richton Park began giving tenants an opportunity to dispute the allegations against them and argue against an eviction. John Murphey, the town attorney who wrote the amended ordinance, said there had yet to be an appeal under the new policy. But he stressed that he designed the process to be convenient and low-cost for renters. 'Rather than hiring a lawyer and fighting it out in eviction court, this gives an early opportunity for the tenant to tell his or her side of the story,' Mr. Murphey said. The legislation under consideration in Illinois would require that all crime-free programs have a similar appeals process. 5. Rental Registration, Complaint Hotlines and Code Enforcement When asked about the underlying problems crime-free housing policies are meant to solve, local officials often point to absentee landlords, investors who buy properties but aren't around to properly manage or maintain them. According to Chief Sherwin, it was a 'recipe for crime to thrive.' But there are other ways to make rental properties safer and more orderly. By creating a detailed registry for all rental buildings, municipalities could maintain control over unresponsive landlords by threatening them with the loss of their registration or with fines if they repeatedly fail to deal with code violations or problematic tenants. To identify issues early, towns could conduct routine inspections of rental properties and create a hotline for tenant complaints. Peoria, Ill., which in 2020 settled a federal housing discrimination lawsuit tied to its crime-free practices, now relies heavily on other tenant laws governing lease violations and evictions, and its code enforcement division seeks to connect renters with support services and free legal aid. Peoria also expanded a rehousing program, which allows the city to sue landlords for code violations and gives part of any recouped funds to tenants to help them find a new home. A crime-free ordinance 'is a tool we have,' said Joe Dulin, the city's community development director. 'It's not the first tool we ever want to use.' 6. Repeal or Ban Ordinances Several years ago, St. Louis Park, a city in the Minneapolis suburbs, went through an elaborate process to analyze possible improvements to its crime-free housing practices following local news reports that showed the city had evicted hundreds of people, often for incidents that weren't even crimes. After nine months, the group appointed by the city to study the issue proposed two solutions: St. Louis Park could keep its ordinance but carry out a long list of needed changes, or the city could repeal it, while also requiring landlords to get licenses and register their properties. In the end, the St. Louis Park City Council voted unanimously to do away with crime-free housing. Other municipalities across the country have also repealed their crime-free ordinances, usually after facing lawsuits or threats of legal action. Last year, California banned the regulations statewide. In Illinois, the proposed legislation would not go that far. Cities could still require landlords to evict renters convicted of a felony that occurred on a rental property. But most other enforcement would be curtailed. 'It's a community safety issue,' said State Senator Karina Villa, the bill's chief sponsor, of the efforts to restrict the policies. 'People should feel safe to contact their law enforcement without fear of repercussions, without fear of ending up on the streets.' Reporting for this article was supported by a grant from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation. Funders have no control over the selection and focus of stories or the editing process and do not review stories before publication. The Times retains full editorial control of this story.
