Federal Legislative Alert - Action Needed
The United States House of Representatives Financial Services Subcommittee has recently approved a bill introduced by Committee Chair Judy Biggert (R, Illinois.) regarding Section 8 housing. The "Affordable Housing and Self-Sufficiency Improvement Act of 2012" (AHSSIA) is of great concern to anyone with a lifetime sex offender registration requirement. AHSSIA contains the following section:
SEC. 108. SCREENING OF APPLICANTS.
(c) REMOVAL OF SEX OFFENDERS.—Section 578 of the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998 (42 U.S.C. 13663) is amended by striking subsection (a) and inserting the following new subsection:
a) IN GENERAL.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, an owner of federally assisted housing—
(1) shall prohibit admission to such housing for any household that includes an individual who is subject to a lifetime registration requirement under a State sex offender registration program; and
(2) shall terminate assistance to, and any lease or right to occupancy of such housing by, any household that includes any individual who is subject to a lifetime registration requirement under a State sex offender registration program.
Federal law already prohibits the admission of an applicant into public housing if anyone in the household is subject to a lifetime registration requirement under a State sex offender registration program. It does not, however, require anyone who is already in public housing to be evicted. In addition, existing law makes a provision for due process, stating:
Opportunity to dispute: Before an adverse action is taken with respect to an applicant for federally assisted housing on the basis that an individual is subject to a lifetime registration requirement under a State sex offender registration program, the public housing agency obtaining the record shall provide the tenant or applicant with a copy of the registration information and an opportunity to dispute the accuracy and relevance of that information. (42 USC 13663(d))
This new bill will change that and evict without any opportunity for appeal whole households who are now living in public housing.
Current public housing law is already flawed, based as it is upon erroneous assumptions. The existing federal law associates a lifetime registration requirement with “dangerousness” and excludes all those individuals from admission to public housing. This may have been valid back when length of registration was tied to a rational evaluation of risk. But, since the adoption of the 2006 federal Adam Walsh Act with its three-tiered classification scheme based upon the crime of conviction rather than risk, many low risk offenders have been arbitrarily re-classified as Tier 2 or Tier 3, and subjected to a lifetime registration requirements. Rep. Biggert’s bill takes the hysteria a step further by evicting without appeal anyone previously admitted into public housing who has been re-classified under AWA (or ever-changing state registration rules) and must now register for life. These evictees will be individuals who are most in need assistance. They may be persons who are past working age, or who have been rendered unemployable by the stigma of a sexual offense history. These are individuals who are legally living in public housing and, with no further misconduct on their part, will be evicted along with their families; unless of course, their families are forced to abandon them due to a dire financial need for public housing.
CCJR is urging members and interested parties to write to their Member of Congress today, asking them to vote against the Affordable Housing and Self-Sufficiency Improvement Act of 2012.
Contact information for your Member of Congress can be found at http://www.nh.gov/government/nhcong.html