It is a common fact that persons with criminal records, though they have paid their debt to society, are still denied many of the basic rights that most people take for granted. Aside from jobs, applications for credit, and a number of other things, affordable housing is pretty close to the top of the list. The reason may or may not surprise you.
The underlying problem is that there just isn’t enough affordable housing to fill the need in the United States. The United States Housing Act of 1937 tried to make it so that everyone would be given affordable housing and didn’t have to worry about living out on the street. What the act in a sense provided for was a number of housing establishments to be created so that people with limited means would have a place to live. Today we often refer to these buildings as sub-standard housing, though that’s not what it was meant to be.
What the act of 1937 failed to foresee was the demand for this housing outweighing the supply. There are more poor people today than ever in our history, even during the depression, and the number is increasing everyday. There just isn’t enough housing to go...