By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
People applying for public housing in Ocean City will no longer face a “One strike and you’re out” policy.
The Ocean City Housing Authority voted 6-0 Tuesday to loosen its admissions policies for people who have convictions for drug possession or a history of other non-violent criminal offenses.
The authority would have risked losing funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and could have exposed itself to lawsuits if it had not made the change, officials said.
HUD has been “strongly recommending” that local housing authorities across the country should relax their admission policies for former drug offenders or people with a record of non-violent crimes, said Jacqueline Jones, executive director of the Ocean City Housing Authority.
“It’s sort of a new area for us,” Jones told the authority’s board members about the policy change during their monthly meeting.
Previously, people with drug convictions who could not prove they successfully completed a rehab program or had committed other crimes faced being barred from public housing, Jones said.
The so-called “One strike and you’re out policy” is being revised to give criminal offenders a second chance, explained Charles Gabage, solicitor for the Ocean City Housing Authority.
“Maybe this is a political statement I’m going to make, but people should be given a (second) chance,” he said.
Gabage told the board members that the policy change reflects “the sentiment” of the public as well as the federal government.
“It’s a change of philosophy,” he said.
Now, people who have a criminal history will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis when they apply for public housing in Ocean City.
“You have to look at the whole picture, not just one thing individually,” Jones said.
She added, “It’s going to take a little bit to figure out where is the line.”
Offenders who have a history of murder, kidnapping, sexual assault and other serious crimes will still be barred from public housing, Jones pointed out.
According to media reports, federal laws give local housing agencies broad latitude in using criminal histories to refuse people admission to public housing.
HUD, however, has been promoting new recommendations that public housing agencies should do more to help people who have served their criminal sentence.
Housing authorities will still have discretion to ban people convicted of violence and other serious crimes – what Jones referred to as the “big, bad ones.”
Bob Barr, a city councilman who serves as chairman of the Ocean City Housing Authority, said the policy change made him feel “a little uncomfortable.”
“It’s the world we live in,” Jones responded to Barr. “It’s changed.”
Barr asked Jones how many times the housing authority considers applications from people who have a criminal history.
“It comes up a lot,” Jones said.
The policy change, though, will give the housing authority “clear guidelines” to decide who may or may not be barred from public housing, Jones explained.
The new policy also recognizes that some former offenders should not be denied public housing as they grow older simply because they made a mistake years or even decades ago, she said.
In other business at Tuesday’s meeting, Barr was re-elected as board chairman and Scott Halliday was re-elected as vice chairman for another one-year term.
