Production and distribution of City Club forums and ideastream public media are made possible by PNC and the United Black.

Fond of Greater Cleveland, Inc.. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

It's Friday, April 26.

And I'm Maria Foster, president and CEO of Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry.

I'm pleased to introduce the 2024 Charles RC Annual Forum on Reentry, featuring Yusuf Dahl, CEO at the Century Promise.

According to the eight point Plan for Housing Justice in Cuyahoga County.

Those with criminal records are ten times more likely to experience homelessness, and those who are homeless are more likely to be arrested.

This speed begins a vicious cycle for those with a record.

These individuals face collateral sanctions, which are state laws and administrative rules that can limit a person's ability to find employment, housing and more.

In fact, the same eight point plan said cited that 78% of affordable rentals in the county had long term bans on those convicted of even minor offenses.

The result is that more than 20,000 people exiting incarceration in Cuyahoga County every year do not have access to a basic need that is vital for successful reintegration.

Our speaker today, Yusuf Dahl, has been on both sides of the struggle to strengthen America's most vulnerable neighborhoods.

As a teenager, he operated a network of drug houses before being sentenced to prison for ten and a half years after his imprisonment.

During the depths of the financial crisis, he became an unlikely real estate investor, an affordable housing advocate from a from a single two family house in one of Milwaukee's poorest zip codes.

Yusuf built a portfolio of over 200 residential and commercial units and founded an award winning property management company.

Yusuf is a former president of Wisconsin's largest apartment owners trade association and is leading the national effort to repeal the Thurman amendment legislation that imposes a lifetime denial of fair housing protections to persons with a drug distribution conviction.

He holds an MBA from Princeton University and an MBA from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

First, we will hear from Yusuf and then he will be joined by Stephanie Casanova, criminal justice reporter at Signal Cleveland, for a coffee table conversation.

If you have a question for our speaker, you can text it to 3305415794.

That's 3305415794.

And City Club staff, we'll try to work it into the Q&A portion of the program.

Members and Friends of the City Club of Cleveland please join me in welcoming Yusuf sDahl.u I know those are clicker.

That's all right.

We're going to adapt to that.

That's my clicker.

Well, good afternoon, everyone.

It's a tremendous privilege to be back in Cleveland.

As some of you know, I'm originally from Milwaukee.

And so I love to get back to the Midwest and come every time I can.

Except when it's winter.

And then I and then I try to avoid that.

So I'm looking forward to our time together today.

But before I begin, I'd just like to briefly acknowledge a few folks in the room.

I'd like to thank ILM for all of their work in bringing this together.

Folks at the City Club for all of this work and in every other partner organization that's made today possible.

I'd also like to acknowledge Charles C. And thank him for his years of service to this community.

You know, I didn't realize.

Yes, please.

I didn't realize how big of a deal Charles was until I posted this event on my LinkedIn and people started reaching out to me.

But.

But not to congratulate me for the keynote, but to say how much they admired Charles and his work in.

So let me provide just a quick roadmap of our time together for the next 20 minutes.

I'm going to start by sharing a bit about who I am.

A little bit about my story.

And then I'm going to talk about the current state of affairs regarding housing access.

And then I'm going to wrap up with some recommendations for both policymakers and advocates to move forward on this issue.

But before I jump in, I just want to level set and explicitly frame the problem that we're going to be talking about today.

Because when we talk about fair chance housing, your perspective on it is going to change depending on where you're sitting at the table.

And for some, it's about housing discrimination and unfair housing denials, but for others, it's about the infringement and their discretion to make rental decisions regarding their property.

Now, both perspectives have elements of truth, and we must take that under consideration as we put forward possible solutions.

So a bit about me.

As you've heard, I have the archetypal poverty two prison story that's far too common, especially in places like Cleveland.

When I was 18 years old, I was sentenced to prison for ten years for the distribution of drugs.

And in the ensuing 25 years, I've been privileged to live a life that I could have never imagined as a child.

I've worked on three continents as a software developer and have received prestigious fellowships, including one from Google.

I was a full time landlord in the city of Milwaukee for many years and had the privilege of serving as the president of the Wisconsin Apartment Association.

Now that work had me involved in a lot of legislation in the state, and here's a picture.

Maybe you can identify me.

This is typically the spaces I found myself in in that capacity.

But but most importantly, I've been able to change the trajectory of my family.

So when I was a teenager, I remember people saying, you know, you're going to end up in prison just like your father and your older brother and I did.

Today, when people meet my family, they ask my daughter if she's going to follow in my footsteps and attend Princeton University.

That's the power of reentry, and that's the power of the work that all of us do in ensuring access to opportunity.

It truly allows us to break the generational cycles of incarceration and poverty.

So I want to be clear, the work that I had to achieve in that I had to do was not easy.

People who know me often joke and they say that I have old man energy because I'm more likely to do something at 7 a.m. than 7 p.m..

But I tell them it's because I spent all my young man energy when I was younger working nonstop.

But for all of that work and this is important, nothing that I've accomplished would have been possible if it wasn't for others being willing to look past the worse thing I did as a teenager and to see me as the person that I have become.

So let's briefly explore the intersection of criminal justice, location and opportunity.

I'm going to start with the obvious location matters and determine so many facets of our life from access to quality schools, access to employment, and even the approach and presen in Quiroga County.

Like many places in the country, ZIP code drastically influences the likelihood of justice involvement.

As we can see from this graph, there are places in this community where the likelihood of justice involvement increases dramatically depending on where you live.

So this graph highlights the percentage of people who are incarcerated who were born to low income parents.

Red represents high levels of incarceration.

And blue represents low levels of incarceration.

And, you know, I'm from Milwaukee, so racial disparities don't shock me.

But I have to tell you, I was floored to learn that there are neighborhoods in this community where upwards of 20% of young black kids born to poor parents end up incarcerated and have some level of justice involvement.

That's systemic and that's tragic.

So we know that geography is correlated with justice involvement.

And so it logically stands to reason that if a person is looking to turn their life around and to avoid the environments in the relationships that led to poor decisions in the past, that perhaps they would want to move to a different neighborhood.

Yet, as we all know, it's not that simple for people who have justice involvement.

And that's because of the unfettered discretion we have given landlords when making rental decisions.

Now, I want to be clear when I suggest unfettered discretion is problematic.

It's not because an owner or an operator is making a decision without the input of others.

It's because there's no transparency into the process or the factors that the decision was based upon.

And it's worth noting that such latitude is not common in many other life altering contexts, such as employment and lending.

Banks and employers have guidelines and oversight on how to exercise discretion regarding criminal records in the decision making process.

And from my perspective, deciding on where one can live is just as consequential, if not more so, than deciding on where one can work.

So why war?

Why were landlords given this discretion?

And moreover, why are they so resistant to relinquish it, especially when it consistently rates below many other factors in the rental screening process, such as past evictions, income, rental history, credit score, etc.?

Well, the answer to that is like a lot of dysfunctional things in this society, and that has to do with political opportunity.

One conviction is sufficient.

My man must emphasize that one conviction is sufficient for a landlord to refuse to rent to a drug dealer.

It's that simple.

I urge my colleagues to vote.

First Amendment fails to do so.

Make the rights of law abiding citizens meaningless.

Drug dealers deserve no federal protection.

Does anyone.

Does anyone in the room recognize that politician?

So we know what that's all about.

And, you know, I've watched that video dozens of times.

And it never ceases to amaze me that not a single senator stood up and challenged his gross generalizations or the implications of taking away fair housing protections for life for people with a single drug distribution conviction.

But that was the zeitgeist of the moment.

And through carrots and sticks throughout the eighties and early nineties, lawmakers changed the norms around tenant screening.

They put landlords at the front line of crime prevention through legislation.

Threats of property seizure.

The promotion of eviction mechanism.

Isms like crime free lease addendums.

And the end result is what I refer to as reentry redlining.

It's where criminal record screening became a tool to institutionalize housing denials for people with justice involvement and to essentially keep them out of certain neighborhoods.

The impact of these types of policies is evident in places like Coyote Jogger County.

And a really interesting report came out in 2020 called A Never Ending Sentence.

If you have not looked at that report, take a look at it, because it really highlights the impact of these policies.

Right, in this community.

But that's only part of the story.

After all, we can go on the nation's largest trade associations website and get the following statistics.

We know that after six years, a past criminal record or past criminal involvement loses its predictive value.

We know that most crimes are committed by young people, and we know that recidivism when it happens, typically takes place within the first three years.

So if we know all of these facts, we all agree on these facts.

How is it that passing fair chance housing legislation has become such a difficult process?

Well, for that, we can't blame politicians alone.

Instead, we have to look to the field of cognitive psychology.

Is anyone familiar with this book or the broader academic work around behavioral economics?

When I was in graduate school, I had the opportunity to take a class with the late, great Danny Kahneman, who won a Nobel Prize for this work.

And in one of his lectures, he explained the cognitive bias known as the endowment effect.

And that's essentially where an individual tends to overvalue things that they possess simply because they possess them.

So how does this relate to Fair Chance housing legislation?

Well, simply put, we have give land.

We have given landlords complete discretion for so long that now that we're trying to roll some of that back, it feels like a vital tool.

Our freedom is being taken away from them, even though, as I just outlined, I'm their own trader Association's website.

We know that criminal records are a poor predictor of tenant success.

It turns out that having absolute discretion to screen out tenants with criminal records is so important, in large part because they already have that ability.

So what do we do as policymakers and advocates?

Policymakers have incredibly challenging jobs, especially in large metropolitan areas.

There just isn't sufficient resources to meet all of the needs and demands of citizens.

Every day they're forced to make tough decisions and sometimes not knowing whether or not that was the right decision.

Well, fair chance.

Housing legislation is not one of those choices.

If you use a common political framework or policy framework in determining when to deploy public resources to address private problems, we look to see if a market failure exists and as such, requires government intervention to level the playing field.

Well, when you view fair chance housing legislation through this pilot or through this lens, the policy choice is clear.

Every day in this community, right here where we are, people are denied housing solely based on a past criminal conviction that has very little predictive value, creating a fair chance.

Housing legislation, and is not about taking away some inalienable right endowed to landlords by the Creator.

It's about making the exercise sides of their discretion more deliberate and more transparent.

And that's better for everyone in this room and in this community.

The fact is, politicians of the past have manufactured this crisis for political gain, and it's up to our current political leaders to get us out of it.

Several models of fair chance housing exist across the country, including in the state of New Jersey and in Cook County, Illinois, for advocates.

I encourage you to continue to engage industry partners.

Landlords are not a monolithic block, and we cannot allow the few to dominate the policy narrative on this issue.

I would also encourage policymakers and advocates to understand that your fight is not just local and to support efforts to realize justice housing nationally.

As many of you know, I got into this work because of my own experience with housing denial and despite all of my accomplishments in the ensuing 25 years with zero justice involvement, my family was not allowed to live where we wanted because of a piece of legislation known as the Thurmond amendment.

Now, this is a chart of where I live in the city of Allentown and its income as adults.

For children who were born in different parts of the city and the blue areas represent incomes that are above the median income.

The red represents below the median income.

Does anyone want to guess where I was allowed to live?

The Thurmond amendment dictated the school my daughter could attend, the neighborhood, the amenities we had access to, and how close we were able to live to our support systems by legally allowing lifetime housing denials.

The Thurmond amendment not only anchors landlords to more restrictive and longer lookback periods, but it keeps our country tied to housing policies informed by the hysteria of the 1980s and the racial tropes that went along with it.

Put simply, housing policy in 2024 in the United States of America should not be informed by people like Strom Thurmond.

Cleveland is home to some of the largest landlords in the country, and we should be engaging them and enlisting them in this support for housing, justice locally and across the country.

Now, I'm going to end with an experience that I've actually been trying to process over the past couple of weeks because it was really troubled, troubling for me.

So I met with the head lobbyist for the largest apartment association in the country.

Right.

So this woman's based out of D.C. and I shared with her my effort to repeal the therm an amendment.

And I mentioned that I was heartened to see on her own Web site guidance, encouraging landlords to do individualized assessments.

And this list the facts that highlighted that criminal records are poor predictors for tenant success.

I shared that there was legislative momentum around removing this artificial barrier.

And I said, you know, hey, at best it would be great to have your support, but at minimum it would be wonderful if you stay neutral.

Is this legislation made its way through the halls of Congress?

I wasn't prepared for what happened next.

She said in her view and her organization's view.

The Thurman amendment is a vital tool for the operation of rental property in this country and is necessary to ensure tenant and building safety.

When I reminded her of the data that was on her website and I shared additional facts about the arbitrary nature of this legislation, she paused and looked me in the eye and warned me that it was possible for these things to go in the other direction and that this amendment could possibly be expanded to enable landlords to ban people for life for other crimes as well.

I had just shared with this woman how this legislation impacted my family and over 14 million people in this country.

I reminded her of her own data that highlighted the gratuitously punitive nature of this legislation, and she responded by essentially threatening me to expand the reach of this barrier to impact even more vulnerable people.

You all the fight is not going to be easy, but each and every one of us in this room understands that we can, that we must, and that we will create a new paradigm of housing in this country, one where people who have paid their debt to society will have the ability to live where they want, not where they are allowed.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

All right.

Thank you.

I make Charles proud.

That's all that.

Matters.

All right.

All right.

So you just shared a pretty heartbreaking story.

And as we see time and time again, the data, the research and sometimes even personal stories don't change minds.

So just to give some people here some hope.

What keeps you going despite all those roadblocks?

Well, I'd say a couple of things.

Keep me going.

One is that if this knowing that this experience happened to me, how many people does it happen to every day that do not have a voice and do not have a platform?

And more importantly, I think about my own daughter and I think about her education and and how it's it's that very thing education, which is going to allow her to have opportunities and break the cycle of incarceration and poverty that's plagued my family.

So and that and I know that this work has to be done right.

And if not me, who?

The other piece is that, you know, this conversation with the woman from DC notwithstanding, there's a lot of landlords who understand that things need to change.

And so I've gotten a lot of support for this work at the state level.

So the Wisconsin Apartment Association has endorsed this not just because I used to run it.

I think the Wisconsin realtors have endorsed this, and we need to engage their associations in Ohio.

And I'll know and this was actually a little disheartening for me.

I've given some variation of this talk across the country dozens of times.

I have never done this engagement and not had a representative from a statewide or local apartment association on this stage with me.

We tried for months.

I actually reached out to a contact in D.C. to try to get someone local and week.

Why aren't you on the stage with us?

But oh well, I am so hard.

And we and we.

And we will definitely connect after.

But but I'll tell you, we, we wanted, we want you up here because your perspective matters and you have to be a part of this table as we solve these problems.

There is this legislation happening right now.

We would never, ever invite.

Oh, and to be fair and well, and we'll definitely engage.

But but exactly that.

And look, that's my advice to the advocates in this room.

Like, you would be shocked at the number of times I show up in a city to talk about this very issue.

And I'll ask, okay, well, what's the landlord's perspectives?

What's their position?

And they haven't engaged them.

And look, I recognize it's the same reason we watch CNN or we watch Fox News, depending on what our political views are.

Right.

We prefer to be around folks who think and value the same things we do.

But we have to cross that divide because at the end of the day, landlords and advocates have more in common than they have what separates them, and we have to collaborate together to solve this problem.

So thank you for showing up.

If you haven't yet, I believe the reentry the Cuyahoga County Reentry Office has a committee and subcommittees and one of those subcommittees is a group of landlords that are working to reduce these barriers and understand these problems.

So if the people who spoke earlier have not yet connected to those committees, they should.

And you kind of started going into what I was going to ask you next, what are some as as you do this work, what are some lessons you've learned and some just kind of mistakes you made along the way that you might want to warn the advocates in this room who are doing this work about.

I'll start with the ladder.

And the biggest mistake I made was underestimate how difficult this was going to be.

So I'm a very logical person.

And, you know, when this incident first happened to me naively, I thought, oh, this is some grave mistake.

You know, how is it that in 2024, 2023, when it happened, that we could have legislation on the books that makes it completely legal to ban someone for life or a decision that was made?

You know, oftentimes as a teenager.

And, you know, the 13th Amendment applies to marijuana as well.

So if you got caught with an ounce of pot 20 years ago, you have no fair housing protections.

And so I underestimated what it takes that to effect change at the national level, the state level, local level, it's a little bit different.

But when you start talking about changing things in D.C., it's it's as you can see, it's incredibly disheartening.

So so that was one thing I undressed and made it.

And one thing I learned and I know a lot of the advocates in this room are already focused on this is the power of data and telling your stories.

And so I was able to pull all drug distribution convictions in the state of Wisconsin from the enactment of the Thurman Amendment all the way up to 2023.

Okay, someone guess what percentage of cocaine distribution charges were for five grams or less?

And just because I'm hoping most of you don't know how much cocaine that is, I'm that's that's not a lot that that is typically associated with personal consumption.

Okay.

So someone I'd love to hear I mean, what percentage do you think of people who had this conviction, lost?

Their fair housing protections for life was for an amount of drugs that's typically considered personal consumption.

Okay.

So I've heard 95 hours, 65, 60, 60, 60% is the answer.

So ask yourself, okay, how is it that 60% of the people who have this conviction that leads to a permanent loss of housing protections for an amount of drugs that should be considered personal consumption?

Well, we can infer a couple of things.

One, these folks probably did not have resources for adequate legal representation.

Right.

Let's be honest.

And two, they likely lived in a community that was incredibly aggressive from the policing and the enforcement side of their community.

And so, you know, it's incredibly arbitrary.

And so that's the story that I take with me when I engage not only policymakers, but, you know, landlords, advocates, everything.

We have to know the facts.

And so if you haven't pulled that data in Ohio and I had to do a special records request, you might have to as well.

But that data is out there and you need to be able to bring that along with you, with your stories.

So you mentioned the power of personal stories.

You touched on areas a little bit, but I'm kind of actually I'm really curious.

People.

Collateral sanctions don't just affect your ability to rent, right?

They affect your ability to buy property, to get a loan, to build credit.

So unlike a personal level, how did you do it?

How did you become a landlord when you had those barriers?

Or are they different in Wisconsin than they are in Ohio?

Now, the collateral consequences, the systemic challenges that it's the same across the country.

I was able I mean, everything I've accomplished, I don't want anyone in this room, especially if it's a young person and maybe has some justice involvement.

I don't want you to think I did this alone.

I don't want you to think it was just an issue of of working hard and best believe I worked incredibly hard, but it was opportunity that was extended to me by other people.

And how I got involved in real estate is I was looking for an apartment and I called this guy up ad on Craigslist or whatever and he showed me a bunch of apartments in the city of Milwaukee and I said, Wow, you must really be doing well if you own all these properties.

And he said, Oh, yeah, you know, real estate is the best.

Everyone should own real estate.

You should own real estate.

But there were two problems.

One, I didn't have any money.

And two, when you met this guy, you could tell there was something about him, right?

He just had a certain ability, intelligence, a gift that just because that person had it didn't mean you had it.

And so I just let it sat on it for a little bit.

And then what changed is a couple of months later, he sent his brother over to pick up his rent.

And two things about that encounter.

One, his brother owned property and had nowhere near the abilities that this other guy did.

And two, his brother drove a Lexus.

I said, That's it.

I'm in this business.

If this guy can do it, I can do it for sure.

And so I started volunteering with this guy on the weekends, in the evenings, working on his property, learning the business, because at the time, I mean, I didn't know anything about housing, right?

My father wasn't there.

I spent most of my juvenile and young adult years in prison.

And so I just worked really hard, like I did.

Every task he asked me to do is if I was being paid for it.

And eventually he took me from, you know, working on the house to going to look at properties with him and, you know, would show me the underwriting he was doing.

And when it was time for me to my first property, he borrowed me the $5,000 that I needed additionally, plus the money I had saved to close on my first property.

So and that's just the example in housing.

But if you want to talk about how I managed to become a software developer, go to print.

Same story, just different people.

Folks saw me and they look past a poor decision I made is a teenager and they saw me and valued me as the person that I was at that moment.

Part of it is just luck and meeting the right people.

Listen, we and I. Yeah, luck plays a big part in so many things, and I think we all need to keep that in mind.

And it helps instill a level of humility in us, because there's a lot of folks who work just as hard as I did, and they're not up here right now.

So a lot of these fair chance housing programs, they tend to on top of taking a very long time to be implemented to break down these barriers.

They tend to exclude people, right?

They exclude people with a four as a five more violent offenses, some sex offenses.

Is there have you seen any, I guess, legislation that does better about not letting these people fall through the cracks?

Well, so there's a couple of models to look at.

The folks in New Jersey, I think, have done a wonderful job and they have a great apartment association leadership team in New Jersey.

Happy to connect folks here.

I know I made that offer last time to the folks at the county, but I was going to make it again.

I'm happy to connect you with those folks and, you know, they have a thoughtful look back period.

And again, the look back period isn't necessarily binding.

Right.

A landlord still has that discretion to say, okay, this crime happened only two years ago.

It's within the look back period.

And in addition to evaluating your rental history, credit score, blah, blah, you know, we're going to go with someone else, but it establishes cut off periods.

We're after a certain period of time after years or whatever it is.

And, you know, you were caught with drugs.

We're not going to value that in this rental.

The screening process in.

And it's such common sense because like I noted in my presentation, talk to any landlord, talk to any association.

What is the most important factor that you're thinking about when you're evaluating this applicant to be successful in your property and it's not?

Did you have just as involvement five, ten years ago?

It's what's your income, what's your rental history, those types of things.

So honestly, you'll never we talked about this yesterday.

I was got a chance to meet some of the board members of land management.

You know, I said this whole situation makes my head hurt because it's not that difficult.

It's not that difficult.

And I really hope when I come back to Cleveland a year from now, we have some effective legislation on the books that extends opportunity to people who've paid their debt to society.

You know?

So what do you wish people understood about people with past felony convictions?

There's a lot of stigma out there.

How do we break it?

You know, I think that stigma is breaking itself because so many people have just been ensnared in the criminal justice system.

One of my biggest supporters in this effort to repeal the Thurman amendment is the head of the Wisconsin Realtors Association.

Really nice guy.

I worked with him when I ran the apartment association.

But he disclosed to me the other day on a phone call.

He said, you know, my brother did cocaine.

And I have another brother who just never got it on track and ended up making a bad decision and spending some time in prison, but not for a drug related offense.

So the fact of the matter is, I would wager everyone in this room has some proximity to somebody who's had some level of justice involvement.

I would be shocked, in fact, come up to me afterwards if you don't know anybody who has not been impacted by the criminal legal system.

And so, you know, there's another cognitive bias known as the act or observer bias.

You all should check out that book.

Bye bye, Danny Economy.

But there's another cognitive bias known as the actor observer bias.

And basically what it says is that when it's somebody we don't know and they make a mistake, we attribute it to some personal failing.

Right.

That person is just a bad person.

A person was born to be a criminal.

That person is evil.

But when that same mistake is made by somebody we know or have some proximity to, we attribute it to external factors.

You know, he's in a tough neighborhood.

I you know, Johnny was in the army and then blah, blah, blah, you know.

So the fact is, as this system has grown, it's just naturally broken down some of these stereotypes and barriers.

So I'm confident that at least when we talk about criminal record related screening, we should be able to sit down the table from across from each other, and we should be able to come up with some solutions because it's in everybody's best interest in Cuyahoga County for people to be able to turn their lives around and break the cycle of incarceration and poverty that is this community.

Thank you.

All right.

Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Will Tarter.

I'm the director of advocacy at Luther Metropolitan Ministry.

And what you heard is an opportunity to follow up on this conversation.

We're going to loop in the director of programing at the City Club so we can follow up on that conversation we had earlier with the with the association.

So thank you, Yusef, for for that.

So stay tuned.

All right.

We're about to begin the audience Q&A for our live stream in our radio audience or for those who are just joining.

Joining me at the City Club is Yusef Doyle, the CEO of the Century Promise, talking about removing barriers to housing after incarceration.

Moderating the conversation is Stephanie Casanova, criminal justice reporter at Signal Cleveland.

We welcome questions from everyone city club members, guests, students and those joining via our live stream at City Club dot org or the radio broadcasts at 89.7 WKSU Ideastream Public Media.

If you'd like to text a question for our speaker, please text it to 3305415794.

That's 3305415794.

And City Club staff will try to work it into the program.

May we have our first question, please?

Sure.

I'm going to share one of our tech questions that we received.

Thurmond The Thurmond amendment has disbursed disproportionate impact on African-Americans because of racist justice system.

Could it be challenged on those grounds?

Thank you.

I don't think that you would win a legal argument that is disproportionately impacting people of color and it is just because there's nothing explicit in the actual enactment of the law.

It's not the law itself that's discriminatory.

It's the implementation of that law.

And so just to give you one example of this, going back to this Wisconsin data I have, and that's why you have to get this in Ohio, we have to get this data across the country because it's hard to dispute the impact, the discriminatory impact of this type of legislation when you have it.

And so people of color are five times more likely to be charged with a distribution charge with one gram or less of cocaine than white people.

And I'm really just trying to wrap my head around that.

I still don't have the answer to that.

But if it's one gram of cocaine, what does it matter?

Like it's one.

So if you're white or black, it should be the same charge.

And If there was only a minor variance, I would just attribute it to, you know, way a judge didn't like his breakfast that morning or something or the DEA, but when you have that level of disparity, it really speaks to, well, first of all, Strom Thurmond.

So we know what the intent was.

I mean, so we we have to just question that.

But but nonetheless, it should move us, all of us, to say that regardless of the intent, the actual outcome has been discriminatory.

And we just need to move past it, because as I tell the conservative folks, y'all want to move to a race blind society.

So do I.

But then let's deal with some of these things that are disproportionately harming communities of color.

Good afternoon again, Yusef.

Ronnie Cannon of Towards Employment.

In this room you have a number of individuals that are currently facing their plight of unfair housing practice, if you will.

If you can offer some words of encouragement or wisdom to the person that feeling, despair of not being able to get adequate housing, please.

Well, this is going to be applicable to not just housing challenges.

I mean, because you're going to face employment challenges, you're going to face credit challenges.

There's going to be no shortage of challenges.

You are going to face.

But I genuinely believe and I'm telling you this because I truly believe it, that if you continue to pound on the door for opportunity and you just refuse to leave, and if no one answers, you go through the window, your break is going to come.

I promise you, I, I promise you, if you consistently show up, okay?

If you consistently show up and and show with intention, show with a sense of urgency, are you going to get every opportunity you want?

No.

Heck, I was just denied a White House fellowship.

But, you know, I mean, like, what are you going to remind me?

But it happens.

But you keep showing up, and I assure you that opportunity will come.

And when it comes, you're going to be able to put a lot of things behind you, and it's going to be moving upward and onwards.

Yes.

Good afternoon.

My name is Lou.

And homeless individuals stay in a shelter and helping all the young house population to get back to their feet.

So the question for you is, will this national or federal legislation can really help to prevent any state or local legislation to go against it?

You know, they are very smart.

They can go around it.

Don't forget, Ohio is one of the five states today.

Any lender can refuse your rent just because it's $1 short or one day late.

So there are so many ways they can get you.

Is there any way to strengthen this particular legislation on the federal level to prevent state and local legislation to go against that in any other sneaky way?

Thank you.

Well, it's I mean, local legislation is going to Trump matters of like fair housing.

I mean, so the way it works with fair housing is there's like a base set of protected characteristics and classes at the federal level.

And then at the state, local level, you can you can add to that.

But, you know, the type of legislation you're talking about isn't necessarily fair house relate fair housing related, it's other types of legislation.

And, you know, I mean, that's why you just have to have dialog and, you know, it's these issues are complex.

I mean, there's there's no doubt about it.

These issues are complex.

And that's why we have to have organizations that are serving as intermediaries that are helping us navigate this process.

And, you know, we we just have to do the best we can.

But I wish I had like, a silver bullet for you for these types of situations.

But it's hard work and we're all going to have to show up every day and do that hard work.

Hello, Greg Reeves from towards employment.

This is kind of a two part question.

One.

Does a landlord have to tell you why they denied you?

And if they don't have to tell you why?

How do you know that's the reason?

Yeah.

So you're going to get it, at least in my case.

Most depends on the service that a landlord might use.

A lot of times, landlords increasingly are using third party screening services.

They're they're cost effective, they're quick.

And they will typically state on the letter why you were denied housing.

Now, the problem oftentimes is that and you're seeing this with the bigger institutional landlords is you'll get the denial letter.

And like in my case, it said, if you take issue with this decision.

Call this number.

Well, I'm in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and the number was in Boston, Massachusetts.

And after spending a half hour getting nowhere on the phone, I had to secure housing.

We had to make other decisions.

If it's a local landlord, it's it's going to be a lot different.

And quite frankly, a lot of local landlords aren't enforcing this type of, you know, grossly punitive discretion.

And legislation.

So it's all going to depend on the landlord and you're going to have that more impersonal call this number out of state from the institutional players.

Local landlords are typically going to have a local office that you can call and actually talk to somebody.

Good afternoon.

I appreciate you being here.

When you look at the the research of what's happening, a lot of the recidivism.

Well, the ability to read can cut down a lot on the recidivism rate.

And when you were in during your ten years, did you see any efforts to help struggling readers?

Because the percentage is very high, the illiteracy rate is very high.

So I'm not really asking about the housing, but when you get out.

If you can't read, then you're certainly not going to be able to to stand up for your rights.

So what did you see?

Efforts when you were doing the ten years to really help struggling readers?

Yeah, so my situation was certainly unique compared to today.

When I arrived yesterday, I went to L.A. and got to meet with some of their participants in the Shopping for Change program.

And I said to myself, My God, if I would have had access to something like that, it would have been a huge leg up for me when I was released.

But I was sentenced to prison, you know, 25 years ago, if not more.

So it's a very different paradigm and model.

And in fact, I don't know if this happened in Ohio.

Probably did.

Wisconsin was sending so many people to prison, they couldn't even house them.

They sent me to Oklahoma.

So, you know, you've heard of the prison industrial complex and we all know everything's a business.

Well, a private prison is really a business.

They make no effort to try to hide that fact.

And so there was very, very little services provided when I was incarcerated, at least in the facility I was in.

But I'm with you 100%.

It's an opportunity when people.

That's why I love what they're doing with the Shopping for Change program, is that it's actually taking place while people are still incarcerated.

I'm going to encourage I've come we've been I represent the men on a mission from city mission.

And it's hard, like you said, it's hard and it's not going to be easy.

So we as a group and a city mission, we appreciate everything that you know, that they provide for us to get back into society on the right track.

However, like you said, there's going to be are background checks, housing, background checks.

So where we're at right now is I'm in a position where they do all they can force in all the support that we get.

I think it's a team thing on their unit.

So they say numbers are stronger than numbers.

So I appreciate it.

Thank you for your service.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks, everyone.

So thank you to Yusuf Dahl and to Stephanie Casanova for joining us at the City Club today.

Forums like this one are made possible thanks to generous support from individuals like you.

You can learn more about how to become a guardian of free speech at City Club dot org.

Today's forum is part of the City Club's criminal justice series.

Thanks to the Shah and Chuck Fowler family Foundation.

It is also the 2024 Charles RC Forum on Reentry and Partnership with Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry.

For 44 years, Charles RC worked to support and advocate for people returning to the community after incarceration.

Supporting returning citizens through workforce development.

Public policy and advocacy remains a major priority for him to this very day.

It is in Charles's honor that the City Club hosted today's forum to highlight nationally recognized efforts and individuals working in reentry.

Mr. C and his family are here with us today and we would like to acknowledge and thank him for his support.

Thank you.

We'd like to also welcome students at the tables from M.c Squared STEM High School and Wickliffe High School.

We'd also like to welcome guests at the tables hosted by Capital Partners Community West Foundation, Cuyahoga County Office of Reentry, Charles C Luther Metropolitan Ministry, the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, the Shah and Chuck Fowler Family Foundation.

The Fair Housing Center, the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland, the Ohio Organizing Collaborative and Towards Employment, just announced at the City Club on Tuesday, April 30th.

Barb McQuade, former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan and professor from practice at the University of Michigan Law School will join us as part Law Day to talk about her new book, Attack from Within How Disinformation is Sabotaging America.

And then on Friday, May 3rd, we will hear from leadership from the four Cleveland nonprofits who receive transformational gifts in the latest round of McKinsey.

Scott's donations birthing beautiful communities, LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland towards Employment and Fairfax Renaissance Development Corporation.

You can get your tickets and learn more about these City Club forums and others at City Club dot org.

And that brings us to the end of today's forum.

Thank you once again to Yusef and Stephanie.

And to our members and friends of the City Club.

I'm Will Tarter.

This forum is now adjourned.

For information on upcoming speakers or for podcasts of the City Club, go to City Club dot org.

Production and distribution of City Club forums and ideastream public media are made possible by PNC and the United Black.

Fond of Greater Cleveland, Inc..