How do you guys or girls deal with ex felons, sexual offenders, people with past evictions or maybe people that have done time in prison, but has since paid their debit to society?
Perhaps they are looking for second chance at life where do these people live? How do they find affordable housing?
Do you believe people can change or are they forever forgotten about and they have no chance of getting into your park?
There are landlords with low screening standards that will accept these individuals. I do not as I have plenty of better quality applicants to chose from.As a landlord operating a business your aim is to reduce your risks through screening out this type of applicant (high risk). Landlords are not social workers or government housing providers and have a responsibility to protect all their tenants by not accepting anyone looking for a second chance.Can they change, doubtful but I have no interest in placing my business at risk to find out.
I totally agree with Greg
I do not take sex offenders under any conditions ever. Too many families and they dont need that headache. Other felonies it would depend.
How can u get rid of them if there when you buy the park?
We met an interesting lady with a completely different take on the sex offender front. Her entire park is sex offenders. A very interesting business model.
Ty,Your job as a park owner is to make money for your business, and to provide the tenants with a place to live that is habitable and up to standard. Accepting sex offenders actually may put you on legal risk, and accepting those with a history of evictions or felony crimes will not do well for your bottom line. Note that a lot of this is dependent on state law - for example in California they’re working on making convicted felons a protected class (AB 396 Assembly Bill – INTRODUCED). In CA you can’t use Arrest Records that didn’t lead to a conviction, too. Talk to a lawyer when you screen. BTW, interesting thing about eviction searches - a lot of people will have evictions filed but not show up in a search, because it never made it to the judgement stage. If you have someone who shows up with a judgement on their record, that means it went all the way to the sheriff coming to their house and kicking them out. Do you really need someone like that in your park?
I’ve heard over the years from a number of excellent park operators that consistent enforcement of park rules and standards is the best thing you can do to have a successful park. While the sex offender may be a good payer and keep his yard and house nice, he will make everyone else in your park more miserable / worried. It’s just a bad trade off. One of the worst park losses I ever heard of involved a large park operator some years ago. They hired a handyman to do maintenance for them, but forgot to screen him for prior felonies. Turned out that he was not only a convicted sex offender, but he also had a special place in the maintenance shed where he gathered and molested little boys in the park. The liability payout on that loss was about $9million.
Kurt that’s some deep stuff there! I’m wondering where do these people live?
If the entire world hates them how can they find a home?
They always find a place to live. There are plenty of landlords that do not bother screening applicants or at best do a shoddy job of it.
Our criminal standards are:1. No sex offenders2. No violent felons within the past 10 years. We do take violent felons if their crime has been more than a decade prior. We figure they’ve paid their debt to society and shown they are serious about keeping their noses out of trouble.So our standards are not so strict as to weed-out DUIs, check bouncers (this at least used to be a felony), and drug users (but not dealers). We just don’t want people in our park that have demonstrated a propensity to harm others.FYI, convicted sex offenders can buy their own housing most anywhere (other than within a certain proximity to a school), or live in less-desirable rental housing - often on the outskirts of town.It’s best to buy a property closer-in to a major metro so you have your pick of tenants and don’t have to lower your standards.Good luck,-jl-
What would you say to a 26 year old that just spent 18 months in jail for dealing meth? He sounded very sincere when he told me he was on the straight and narrow road to never return to drug dealing. He now has a job as a roofer for a well known company in my metro and excited to have the opportunity to join the roofers union in a couple of months. Has good rental reference and gave me his parole officer contact info as an additional reference.
I would love to give him a second chance, but not sure if I should. What would you do?
Why would you love to give him a second chance. What is in it for you and the rest of your residents to allow a high risk such as this individual into your community. Is he the only possible applicant you have.
As soon as he loses his job or gets lazy he will be back to dealing out of your community. You have a responsibility to your residents not to take chances.
It’s a judgement call, addiction to substances like that is a terrible disease, and it is a disease. People get hooked, then have to deal to survive. How long has he been clean?
There is risk here, but you could put him on a month to month and charge a higher deposit. It’s your call.
I was there Dale in Orlando. It’s a crazy business model that I would never consider. There is no exit strategy here. I think I might remember you.
@Ty_ , as per your question:
“How do you guys or girls deal with ex felons, sexual offenders, people with past evictions or maybe people that have done time in prison, but has since paid their debt to society?”
We do NOT accept:
As per the saying:
“The best predictor of future behavior is…past behavior.”
Yes, people can and do change.
However, I do not want my MHP to be the testing ground for whether they have indeed ‘changed’ or if they are still doing bad behavior.
Back in the spring we made the decision to rent to a young individual who had a shoplifting crime on their record. We thought that everyone makes mistakes, so we gave this individual a chance.
We quickly learned that the shoplifting crime was an indicator of their level of respect for others property (basically no respect). Thankfully, we learned early and gave this individual a 30 day notice.
The level of respect that a prospective Tenant displays (both verbally or in written form) is a great indicator of how they will treat you and your MHP.
We wish you the very best!
reading this thread with great interest, to see others views on a very complex subject. I can’t help but wonder if some of the rules expressed are too broad stroked. Specifically “Prison Time” as a dis-qualifier in general is too broad in my opinion.
The facts that in the USA which has 5% of the worlds population, but has 25% of the prisoners, that recidivism runs about 43% because of budget cuts, that many people are wrongly convicted and mandatory sentenced to prison says more about the law and judicial branch of government than it does about an individual.
Consider the fact of wrongful conviction and later exonerated, you would automatically disqualify, or the person that was not allowed to present evidence in court such as this petition on change.org would not be allowed in your MHC
Also consider the problem of mandatory prison sentences like this petition:
I can fully understand the idea of specific cases where someone is convicted of manufacturing / distributing drugs, armed robbery, sexual predator, etc-- but I would be more inclined to see the reason for the incarceration rather than use broad strokes and deny anyone / everyone that was in prison.EG: In some states writing a bad check can get you prison time. If everyone that wrote one bad check went to prison, many of your current tenants would not be allowed in your MHC.
Most prisoners that get released are so happy just to be out that IF they get a chance they would rather not go back. It also seems prudent to consider having some older units that might not be in the best shape that these people could occupy at a cost they can afford.
What about the person that has paid their debt to society? They would be automatically disqualified. What about the difference between a person that went to prison vs someone that went to county jail for 6 months?
Prison is not designed to rehabilitate it is a punishment. Most convicts hone their criminal skills while incarcerated.
With all the people that are not criminals in the country why voluntarily place one that is in with your residents. A landlords first and most important responsibility is to their protect residents and second to mitigate their own business risks.
Landlords are not social workers and do not have the skills to analyse each criminal on a individual bases to determine if they will reoffend or not in the future. Let someone that cares more about giving criminals a second, third, forth chance than about their residents or their business rent to them.
When screening applicants I have a long list of items that will disqualify a candidate. Lack of income, lack of employment, eviction record, large dog, bad credit score etc. Having a criminal record would seem to be a no brainer.
Thanks guys, I appreciate your opinions. I’ve decided to pass on this resident.