CORI reform a step toward helping homeless
IN MASSACHUSETTS, if you are schizophrenic, homeless, and scared, you could be forced to wait for months for subsidized housing while landlords and housing agencies pore over your criminal record.
Each year, thousands of applicants for subsidized housing face a gauntlet of Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) checks and other barriers. These are our most vulnerable citizens -- disabled, homeless, mentally ill, or just plain low income. They are the people we should be helping to find affordable housing as quickly as possible.
Instead, we make them wait.
As Governor Deval Patrick and state lawmakers consider reforms, they should examine ways to streamline the process. First, the number of CORI checks must be reduced. Landlords, housing authorities, and state agencies like the Department of Mental Health each conduct separate background checks. Because federal and state guidelines do not spell out exactly what offenses merit a denial of housing, each group applies its own criteria.
Some applicants are denied subsidized housing based on petty crimes such as vagrancy, or because their criminal-background reports contain information about dismissed cases -- which should not be listed in the reports. Creating a uniform standard would eliminate the need for multiple CORI checks and reduce confusion.
"It can get frustrating," says Bob Rubinstein, housing outreach coordinator for the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans. "Our clients are moving into apartments, and they don't know how long they'll have to wait. Some try and never get in because of the extent of their criminal history. A lot of them end up moving back in with family and friends or drifting out of the shelter."
Housing authorities and other state agencies should speed up their screening processes. Applicants for our affordable housing units at Nuestra Comunidad Development Corporation must wait eight to 10 weeks on average, and sometimes as long as three months, for their CORI checks to be completed.
In addition to taking too long, the system often shuts out ex-offenders who have made serious efforts to rehabilitate themselves. One former drug and alcohol abuser -- we'll call her Lisa -- did everything she could to get her life back on track following a few run-ins with the law.
When she found herself homeless in 2005, she decided it was time to change the way she lived. She began working full time for the Work Experience Program at the City of Boston's Long Island shelter. Lisa also enrolled in UMass-Boston's Certificate Program in Alcohol and Chemical Dependency Treatment Services so that she could help others who suffer from addiction.
Through Home Start, a housing advocacy organization, she applied to a long list of subsidized housing developments in Greater Boston, but was turned down. The Boston Housing Authority was the only organization that considered giving her and her young son housing, but due to her criminal record she was denied. She appealed, but was denied again, despite letters of support and personal testimony from case managers, supervisors, and counselors. Finally, over a year after their search began, Lisa and her son recently moved into a two-bedroom apartment of their own.
Unnecessary denials and long waits are common complaints across the state, and not limited to Boston. Twenty-two state representatives recently signed onto legislation sponsored by state Representative Michael Festa, which would require parole officers and the heads of correctional facilities to create "certificates of rehabilitation" for inmates who have completed rehabilitation programs. Housing providers and employers would then be able to view these certificates alongside an applicant's CORI information.
Criminal background checks area vital tool for Nuestra Comunidad and other providers of subsidized housing in Massachusetts. We must have access to criminal background information in order to protect the quality of life and safety of our tenants. This tool, however, should work for our existing tenants -- not against those seeking to move into our housing.
Now is the time for change. The climate on Beacon Hill appears favorable to improving the CORI system. Good legislation has been filed, and Governor Patrick has said he favors CORI reform. We must seize this opportunity to create a simpler, faster, and more forgiving system of background screening for those in desperate need of affordable housing.
Evelyn Friedman is executive director of Nuestra Comunidad Development Corporation, a nonprofit in Boston. 
