This spring, as lawmakers in the Illinois State Senate debated a bill that would restrict local programs known as crime-free housing, hundreds of witnesses showed up to share their views on the proposed changes.
City officials and police chiefs argued that ordinances governing the programs, which can require landlords to evict renters who have had contact with law enforcement, should stay as they are. Aggressive ordinances are needed, they said, to help the police oust drug dealers who set up shop in apartment buildings, and to compel landlords to deal with problems at their properties.
Housing advocates and renters spoke in support of major changes, pointing to multiple instances of discriminatory and unlawful enforcement. Landlords also pleaded for further regulation, telling senators they had no interest in acting as the enforcement arm of the police.
It is a debate that has intensified over the past three decades as the number of crime-free housing programs spread from a handful of early adopters to more than 2,000 municipalities across 42 states.
An investigation by The New York Times and The Illinois Answers Project found that in recent years, hundreds of people have been evicted in Illinois, many of them over minor infractions that occurred nowhere near their homes. Sometimes people were threatened with eviction after they called 911 for help.
Over the years, many state and local governments have amended their ordinances to try to avoid such outcomes, often with mixed results.
Some cities have looked to alternative strategies to keep rental properties and their tenants safe. Here are six of them.
1. Protect Victims of Domestic and Sexual Violence
In 2015, Illinois passed statewide legislation prohibiting what was found to be one of the most troubling unintended consequences of crime-free housing programs: The ordinances sometimes punished the victims of crimes.
In many municipalities with these laws, the police order a landlord to evict a tenant after receiving a set number of 911 calls from or about a specific apartment; without much investigation, everyone in the household is forced to move. Victims of domestic violence were losing their homes after reporting abusive partners. Some survivors, fearing eviction, avoided calling the police for help.
The 2015 legislation made it illegal to use crime-free housing laws against renters who called 911 to report incidents of domestic or sexual violence. Iowa and Pennsylvania made similar changes after the evictions of battered women in those states were publicized.
But the new provisions have not adequately protected victims, according to many people who originally fought for the changes, because police officers still must decide whether to categorize an incident as domestic violence.
A recent report issued by a coalition of housing advocates in Illinois found that in many municipalities, domestic violence reports were still triggering evictions. In the Chicago suburb of Rolling Meadows, for instance, a majority of the removal orders in 2023 were prompted by domestic violence calls. In Belleville, in Southern Illinois, domestic violence 911 calls led to more than a hundred eviction orders from 2021 to 2024.
“Ten years later, we’re still seeing discriminatory enforcement,” said Emily Coffey, who worked on the report as part of her job at the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. “We’re still seeing enforcement against survivors of domestic violence,” she said, “even though it’s clearly a violation of state and federal law.”
2. Prohibit Evictions Based on 911 Calls
A New York State law passed in 2019 required municipalities with crime-free programs to protect people who call emergency services for any reason.
“Despite their intent to aid communities, overly broad ordinances have instead had a harmful chilling effect deterring victims of violence and crime from accessing police assistance and have jeopardized public safety,” the legislation states.
The law dictates that any renter in the state has the right to contact emergency services without reprisal, and it protects landlords from being fined or from losing their license if they don’t evict a tenant based on the number of calls to the police.
The American Civil Liberties Union of New York maintains a “Know Your Rights” page about the law on its website, with a link to its services and a message for both renters and landlords in case an eviction order is prompted by calling 911: “You can bring an action in court for damages or for the eviction to be undone.”
3. Limit Enforcement to Serious Crimes
Cities that aggressively enforce crime-free housing laws can evict tenants for the violation of virtually any law or municipal code. In some cities, setting off fireworks or allowing a minor to drink a beer could lead to an eviction.
In 2019, California issued statewide regulations limiting the enforcement of crime-free ordinances to serious offenses. The state prohibited cities from initiating evictions based on overly broad definitions of crime.
Faribault, Minn., tried something similar after the A.C.L.U. accused it in a lawsuit of discriminating against Black residents, including a growing Somali population.
As part of a 2022 settlement, Faribault agreed to revise its ordinance, which now spells out the specific offenses that can lead to an eviction. John Sherwin, who became Faribault’s police chief as the settlement was being finalized, said the city of about 25,000 was small enough that each time an offense at a rental property occurred, his officers checked with him about whether it warranted a crime-free action.
“We are not evicting for anything less than a felony,” Chief Sherwin said. “I think this is just a smarter way to do it. This ordinance is for dealing with what’s causing the most social harm in the community, and those are serious felonies.”
4. Require Due Process and Oversight
In Richton Park, 30 miles south of Chicago, Diamond Jones and her family were ordered out of their home after calling the police multiple times in 2022 to report shootings and threats against them. At the time, the city’s crime-free housing program had no appeals process.
Ms. Jones later sued, and as part of a settlement reached in 2025, Richton Park began giving tenants an opportunity to dispute the allegations against them and argue against an eviction.
John Murphey, the town attorney who wrote the amended ordinance, said there had yet to be an appeal under the new policy. But he stressed that he designed the process to be convenient and low-cost for renters.
“Rather than hiring a lawyer and fighting it out in eviction court, this gives an early opportunity for the tenant to tell his or her side of the story,” Mr. Murphey said.
The legislation under consideration in Illinois would require that all crime-free programs have a similar appeals process.
5. Rental Registration, Complaint Hotlines and Code Enforcement
When asked about the underlying problems crime-free housing policies are meant to solve, local officials often point to absentee landlords, investors who buy properties but aren’t around to properly manage or maintain them.
According to Chief Sherwin, it was a “recipe for crime to thrive.”
But there are other ways to make rental properties safer and more orderly. By creating a detailed registry for all rental buildings, municipalities could maintain control over unresponsive landlords by threatening them with the loss of their registration or with fines if they repeatedly fail to deal with code violations or problematic tenants. To identify issues early, towns could conduct routine inspections of rental properties and create a hotline for tenant complaints.
Peoria, Ill., which in 2020 settled a federal housing discrimination lawsuit tied to its crime-free practices, now relies heavily on other tenant laws governing lease violations and evictions, and its code enforcement division seeks to connect renters with support services and free legal aid. Peoria also expanded a rehousing program, which allows the city to sue landlords for code violations and gives part of any recouped funds to tenants to help them find a new home.
A crime-free ordinance “is a tool we have,” said Joe Dulin, the city’s community development director. “It’s not the first tool we ever want to use.”
6. Repeal or Ban Ordinances
Several years ago, St. Louis Park, a city in the Minneapolis suburbs, went through an elaborate process to analyze possible improvements to its crime-free housing practices following local news reports that showed the city had evicted hundreds of people, often for incidents that weren’t even crimes.
After nine months, the group appointed by the city to study the issue proposed two solutions: St. Louis Park could keep its ordinance but carry out a long list of needed changes, or the city could repeal it, while also requiring landlords to get licenses and register their properties. In the end, the St. Louis Park City Council voted unanimously to do away with crime-free housing.
Other municipalities across the country have also repealed their crime-free ordinances, usually after facing lawsuits or threats of legal action. Last year, California banned the regulations statewide.
In Illinois, the proposed legislation would not go that far. Cities could still require landlords to evict renters convicted of a felony that occurred on a rental property. But most other enforcement would be curtailed.
“It’s a community safety issue,” said State Senator Karina Villa, the bill’s chief sponsor, of the efforts to restrict the policies. “People should feel safe to contact their law enforcement without fear of repercussions, without fear of ending up on the streets.”
Reporting for this article was supported by a grant from the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation. Funders have no control over the selection and focus of stories or the editing process and do not review stories before publication. The Times retains full editorial control of this story.
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