Salt Lake Tribune: Patchwork of Laws Squeezes Ex-cons

Another great idea! Let's buy these unfortunate folks a one-way ticket to "Powderville"

Fascinating story in this morning's Salt Lake Tribune, revealing the ugly underbelly of these "Good Landlord Programs," which have become all the rage in cities across Utah over the past several years. Here's the lede:

Ogden » At Park Avenue apartments, even one of the security guards is on parole.
As of mid-February, at least 19 probationers and parolees were living at the 150-unit complex at the corner of 24th Street and Adams Avenue. Many, including the guard, have drug convictions; a few have committed gun-related or violent crimes.
Building managers are reducing the number of state-supervised tenants, but there are still plenty of felons in the neighborhood.
The Department of Corrections listed 713 probationers and parolees in the building's ZIP code. That gives Ogden the highest per capita rate of people on state supervision among Utah cities with at least 10,000 residents.

Read this morning's full SLTrib story here:

• Patchwork of laws squeezes ex-cons

The net result of these "Good Landlord Laws," which essentially ban landlords from renting to felony probationers and parolees, and assess stiff penalties to landlords who don't enroll in these programs, is that such offenders, who've been released from incarceration for rehabilitation and post-release supervision, are forced to reside in clusters where a few landlords are willing to take a chance with them... not a good thing for folks who are trying to turn their lives around... or for communities in general, as this morning's SLTrib story aptly points out.

Ogden City, of course, a forerunning pioneer in the Good Landlord Program Movement, gets plenty of ink in this morning's SLTrib expose':

An Ogden ordinance may be largely to thank for cramming parolees and probationers into a few city blocks. The good landlord program, which began in 2005, gives participating landlords discounts on business licenses.
The program requires landlords to run credit and criminal-background checks on potential tenants and disqualify anyone on probation or parole for a felony conviction. The city says 83 percent of licensed rental units participate, as does Ogden's public housing authority.

And speaking of "ugly underbellies," there's more. It seems that Boss Godfrey is now going after the residential clustering:

Park Avenue also belongs to Ogden's good landlord program and has received a notice from the city that its tenants are putting it in violation. Victor Huhem, an attorney for the owners, said the landlords can't evict those tenants, but won't renew their leases when they expire. Being compliant with the program is a big incentive: Park Avenue would save about $11,000 a year.
At the Park Avenue apartments, Huhem described the complex as well-kept and trouble-free. People on supervision, he said, are the "best tenants."
"They don't want to make any mistakes," he said.

So the the Ogden Administration continues to make these people's lives miserable and now engages in turning up the heat. Seems no wonder that 62 percent of these parolees wind up back in the slam.

We dunno about all this... these folks need to reside somewhere, don't they, now that they've been released by corrections authorities into our community to begin their lives anew? We learn this morning of course that they can't reside in at least "nine other cities across Utah," either.

Hey, here's another great idea! Perhaps Boss Godfrey can buy these unfortunate folks, (who seem doomed to wear a scarlet letter for the rest of their lives,) a one-way ticket to "Powderville, Utah." It's our understanding that the percipient Powderville Town government hasn't enacted a Good Landlord Law... at least not yet.