State lawmakers passed legislation late Wednesday that would ban mandatory evictions or foreclosure for California renters and their families based on criminal history or run-ins with law enforcement.

Assembly Bill 1418 challenges local policies known as crime-free housing, which could require landlords to evict tenants for arrest or prohibit landlords from renting to people with prior convictions. The bill would make many of these laws unenforceable, ending the practice in dozens of communities.

The bills’ author, Assemblymember Tina McKinnor

(D-Hawthorne),(D-Inglewood),

said its passage advances the state’s racial justice efforts by preventing communities from using crime-free housing laws to exclude or push out Black and Latino renters.

“We want to make sure that we keep black and brown people in their homes and everything [crime-free housing rules] are not used as an excuse for gentrification,” said McKinnor.

The bill does not affect landlords’ ability to initiate nuisance-related evictions or screen tenants based on criminal histories

on off

their own agreement.

AB 1418 was inspired by a 2020 Times investigation that highlighted the proliferation of crime-free housing policies across California, especially in communities with growing Black and Latino populations. Times reporting found that local governments adopted the policy even as crime rates were stable or declining while the number of black or Latino residents increased. The Times found that in some areas, crime-free housing rules were being enforced against black, Latino and other tenants of color

much larger in much larger numbers

than their share of the population.

Terrance Stewart told The Times in 2020 that he was continually rejected by landlords in Riverside, who had strict crime-free housing, because of a previous conviction for dealing cocaine. Stewart, who is black, had been accepted to UC Riverside and had to resort to living with his wife and then 3-month-old daughter in another city, a 90-minute bus ride from campus. Stewart’s problems finding housing in Riverside continued even after he graduated with a master’s degree five years later, nearly a decade after his drug conviction.

Stewart, now 42 and with three children, testified in favor of AB 1418 at a legislative committee hearing earlier this year. Now that the bill has passed, he plans to look for apartments in Riverside, in neighborhoods with good schools.

“It’s just amazing that your pain becomes your ministry,” said Stewart, who works for Alliance for Safety and Justice, a national criminal justice reform group. “I’ve been so stressed about these ordinances.”

His involvement in the repeal of crime-free housing laws, he said, “makes me feel like life has a purpose.”

AB 1418 passed both houses of the Legislature without a dissenting vote in committee or on the floors of the General Assembly or Senate.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has until October. 14 to sign the bill, veto it, or allow it to become law without his signature.

Newsom’s position is unknown. His office previously opposed the legislation, citing the potential costs to the state of reimbursing municipalities for repealing their ordinances. But McKinnor has since removed the requirement for cities to remove their policies from their municipal codes. Instead, they could remain on the city’s books but no longer be enforced.

Newsom typically does not comment on pending legislation and his office did not respond to a request for his opinion on AB 1418.

Crime-free housing programs vary widely in California. Less serious ones include police training for landlords on criminal background checks and anti-crime rental provisions. But some go much further.

A now-repeated crime-free housing law in Hesperia, a high-altitude desert city, required landlords to evict tenants and their families based on police suspicions that they were involved in criminal activity on or near their properties. Before the law was passed, a council member described the purpose of the crime-free housing law as correcting a demographic problem with people committing crimes in this community.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice settled a lawsuit against the city and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department alleging that Hesperia’s policies violated civil rights laws after a federal investigation found that black tenants were charged nearly four times were as likely, and Latino renters 29%. are more likely to be evicted under the program than white renters.

AB 1418 is the state’s most notable response to finalizing crime-free housing policies, a cause that is gaining momentum.

In the spring, Atty. General Rob Bonta issued formal guidance to all municipalities to ensure that all crime-free housing laws were consistent with broader civil rights and fair housing rules.

Over the summer, California’s Reparations Task Force called for the repeal of such laws in its recommendations for remedying the legacy of slavery and more modern, government-sanctioned policies that discriminated against Black residents.

And this month, Riverside and San Bernardino, the two largest cities in the Inland Empire that have been a hotbed of crime-free housing regulations, voted to repeal their ordinances. San Bernardino did this as part of a legal settlement in a case challenging the program, filed by legal aid groups and joined by Bonta and Newsom’s offices on behalf of low-income residents of the city.

It would not be clear how many crime-free housing regulations AB 1418 would be, but supporters believe the number is substantial.

The Times’ 2020 investigation found that 147 local governments in California (more than a quarter of the total) had implemented a crime-free housing law or advertised such training for landlords.

AB 1418 bans the strictest crime-free housing policy that forces landlords to use criminal background checks to screen tenants, evict them for alleged criminal conduct without a felony conviction or evict an entire household when a member is convicted of a crime, in addition other prohibited . This would allow the city and police to continue voluntary training for landlords.

A survey of about half of the state’s local governments conducted for the nonprofit National Housing Law Project found the legislation would wipe out crime-free housing regulations in 130 jurisdictions.

“This bill was intended to eliminate the common provisions that lend themselves most to displacement,” said Marcos Segura, a lawyer at the National Housing Law Project, one of the bill’s main backers.

AB 1418 has a broad support base. In addition to advocates for low-income renters and legal aid groups, the California Apartment Assn., the state’s largest landlord group, is behind the measure. The apartment association argues that cities should not adopt policies that require landlords to evict tenants.

“This is an inappropriate and reprehensible mandate on the part of local governments,” association Vice President Debra Carlton said of crime-free housing laws in a letter of support for the bill.

Historically, crime-free housing policies have received strong support from police and prosecutors for public safety reasons. But there are no named opponents of the legislation.

Should Newsom sign AB 1418, it would go into effect on January 1.