• Tenant associations, community-based organizations, and other housing justice advocates can organize collectively to build strong public support and advocacy campaigns for fair chance housing policies, grounded in the lived experience of impacted individuals. 
• Elected and appointed state and city officials can champion, propose, and pass fair chance housing policies.  
• Government agencies or departments play a critical role in ensuring robust implementation of these policies. They can oversee compliance by training housing providers, educating community members, and responding to violations or complaints against landlords and property management companies.
• Public and private housing providers must comply with existing laws like the Fair Housing Act and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) when screening applicants for housing. In addition to implementing fair chance housing policies, landlords can also reevaluate all of their screening practices to ensure fairness and transparency, as others have done. Some examples of screening changes that landlords can assume include delivering uniform screening criteria to all applicants, employing individualized assessments to applicants, and ensuring their marketing does not deter potential applicants with criminal records.
• Legal service providers can help tenants understand their rights under fair chance housing policies and can pursue legal cases against housing providers who are in violation of that policy. 
• Researchers can conduct evaluations on fair chance housing policies to understand the effectiveness of the policy or areas for strengthening implementation. They can also continue to gather empirical evidence to demonstrate the impact and benefits of such policies, ultimately supporting talking points in defense of fair chance housing policies.
• Social workers and case managers who are supporting individuals during the reentry process can inform impacted individuals of their rights under fair chance housing laws. They can also provide guidance on how to file complaints against landlords if tenants suspect they are being discriminated against.
• Foundations and philanthropic institutions can provide funding to support grassroots organizing, public education campaigns, legal services, and policy research related to fair chance housing. They can also fund pilot programs or innovations in housing access for people with criminal records.
• Media outlets and journalists can shape public perception and generate awareness about the impact of housing discrimination on people with criminal records. Journalists can spotlight both the harms of exclusionary practices and the benefits of fair chance housing policies.

• Outreach, training, and education: consistent and sustained outreach, training and education for both housing providers and tenants are essential to ensure that all parties understand their rights and responsibilities. These efforts should clearly communicate how the policy works, the benefits it offers, and the available avenues for reporting violations or seeking redress.
• Coverage: Many fair chance housing laws have exemptions based on building type, ownership model, or number of units – leaving gaps in protection. To ensure broad and equitable access to housing, fair chance policies should strive to cover all residential rental units, regardless of property type, size, or ownership structure.
• Clear lookback periods: Lookback periods—defining how far into a person’s criminal history landlords can consider—must be clearly articulated. These periods help ensure that past legal system involvement does not indefinitely impact someone’s housing opportunities. Policies should explicitly define the start and end of lookback windows (e.g., from the date of conviction, sentencing, or release) to avoid ambiguity and ensure tenants understand their eligibility with confidence. 
• Tiered screening processes: staggering the screening process to require several different points of contact between applicants and a housing provider can support a fair and transparent process. For example, some fair chance housing policies establish a two-step process with conditional offers to prevent someone’s criminal history from being the main determinant of a housing offer. 
• Individualized assessments: a criminal record alone offers a limited view of a person’s character or suitability as a tenant. Fair chance policies should require  individualized assessments that allow applicants to present mitigating evidence –  such as the circumstances of the offense, evidence of rehabilitation, corrections to the record, or community involvement. This process ensures more nuanced and equitable decision-making.
• Limiting discretion in decision-making: While individualized assessments are important, policies should guard against excessive landlord discretion that can reintroduce bias. Establishing presumptive eligibility for certain offenses after a given time period, or prohibiting consideration of non-convictions or arrests, can provide clearer guardrails.
• Right to Appeal and Mitigating Information Protections: Policies should guarantee applicants the right to appeal housing denials and include protections to ensure that mitigating evidence is meaningfully considered. This includes defining what types of information landlords must review and requiring written documentation of why an appeal was upheld or denied.
• Reentry and Transitional Housing Alignment: Fair chance housing policies should be coordinated with reentry programs, probation/parole offices, and transitional housing providers. This ensures that people exiting incarceration have a clear path to permanent housing and don’t fall through bureaucratic cracks.
• Enforcement: Effective enforcement requires jurisdictions to dedicate resources—both personnel and budget—within government agencies or departments to oversee compliance. These stakeholders should be empowered to conduct intake for complaints, investigate potential violations, litigate enforcement actions, collect information and data for future legal action, and establish mechanisms for restitution, compensation, or corrective action where harm has occurred. 
• Written notice: requiring landlords to provide housing applicants with written notices of denial, or conditional denial, can create an important pause in the background check process so applicants have a fair chance to advocate for themselves. These written notices should include details regarding what part of the applicant’s background did not meet publicly shared screening criteria. Notices should also include copies of evidence used to make the first decision, and clear directions and timelines for appeals processes through which applicants can provide mitigating information.  
• Regular evaluation and public accountability: Ongoing evaluation of fair chance housing policies is critical to ensuring they remain effective and aligned with their original intent. Regular assessments can identify gaps in enforcement, compliance education, or training, and inform future amendments and broader policy reforms. Evaluations also provide valuable data to support continued advocacy and public accountability. Jurisdictions should collect and publicly report disaggregated data on how fair chance policies are being implemented, including the number of complaints filed, types of violations, outcomes of investigations, and demographic information (where appropriate). 

More than ten state and local jurisdictions have a fair chance housing policy in place – all varying in strength and design. Below are a few examples of policies across the country aiming to increase housing access to those with criminal records. 

• In 2017, the city of Seattle passed one of the strongest fair chance housing ordinances in the country.  The law sought to address racial disparities in housing access and aimed to eliminate bias in the housing application process. In their advocacy, individuals—including impacted people—referenced consistent research findings that illustrate the negative correlation between housing access and recidivism rates. In its original form, the fair chance housing ordinance prevented landlords from making a housing decision solely based on an applicant’s arrest, criminal, or conviction record. It also prohibited landlords from using blanket bans on applicants with a criminal history record in their advertising, or inquiring about the applicant’s criminal background at the start of the background check process. Since the passage of the ordinance, families have been able to achieve economic stability in affordable housing that they might otherwise have been denied. However, legal challenges in 2023 limited the  Seattle Office for Civil Rights’ ability to enforce the part of the law that restricts inquiries on an applicant’s criminal history. For more information and a legal analysis of this case, visit the National Housing Law Project.  
   
• In 2015, a group of community members, advocates, and elected officials in Washington D.C. organized around homelessness issues and formed the Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH). A year later, a smaller coalition emerged and began prioritizing policy advocacy that would expand housing access to people with criminal records. Their advocacy led to the passage of the  Fair Criminal Records Screening Act for Housing. This law requires landlords to provide all applicants a written copy of the criteria they will use to make a housing decision and restricts their ability to ask about someone’s criminal history before an applicant is given a conditional offer. When a conditional offer is extended to an applicant, landlords can then only inquire about specific, pending criminal convictions that have happened in the last 7 years. Any denials based on an applicant’s criminal history record must be done in conjunction with an individualized assessment. The success of this law’s passage encouraged the same coalition to pursue additional tenant screening protections regarding credit and rental history in 2022.  
   
• In 2020, a coalition of impacted individuals and their families, government officials, policy advocates and housing providers worked together to pass a fair chance ordinance in Oakland. At the time, it was considered the strongest fair chance housing ordinance in California. The ordinance makes it illegal for housing providers to impose a blanket ban on applicants with criminal histories in their advertising, ask about a criminal history in rental applications, or use an applicant’s criminal history to make a housing decision. This law also prohibits landlords from using an applicant’s criminal history in eviction decisions. There are a few exemptions, including for federally-subsidized housing providers that must comply with federal and/or state background check requirements.
   
• In 2021, a coalition of advocacy, civil rights, and faith-based groups across the state of New Jersey—including the NAACP New Jersey State Conference, Latino Action Network, and Fair Share Housing Center— successfully campaigned for the Fair Chance in Housing Act (FCHA). The law prohibits landlords from asking about a housing applicant’s criminal history until after a conditional offer has been made. It also bars consideration of arrest records, sealed records, and other protected categories. Once a conditional offer has been made, landlords may inquire only about certain convictions within specific time frames as outlined in the statute. For landlords who do ask about an applicant’s criminal history, they are required by law to give the applicant a Notice of Disclosure that outlines the applicant’s right to appeal, correct inaccuracies, and provide mitigating evidence. The New Jersey Division of Civil Rights (DCR) has been tasked with enforcement of the law, and as of 2024, the DCR has cited 25 landlords across 11 counties with alleged violations of the FCHA. 
   
• New York City’s Fair Chance for Housing Act went into effect on January 1, 2025 following years of organizing and advocacy led by community members, grassroots organizations, and directly impacted people. In a city where almost 11 percent of the population – 80 percent of whom are Black or Latinx/e – has some form of criminal background, this legislation marked a major step toward racial and economic justice. Similar to other fair chance housing laws, this one instructs landlords to make a conditional offer based on criteria like income and credit history before conducting a criminal record check on an applicant. Landlords are completely prohibited under this law from asking about an applicant’s criminal history prior to making a conditional offer. This law also outlines the types of convictions or legal infractions that a landlord may review, and gives applicants the right to counter anything discovered in the criminal background check process. Lookback periods for misdemeanors and felony convictions are also established at three and five years, respectively. Finally, if a landlord were to still reject an applicant based on criminal history, they are required to retract the conditional offer through written notice with an explanation for why the conviction history goes against their business interests, and supporting documentation for that conclusion.