I’ve been curious about the crime on my side of Houston (the far west), and whether we’ve been having problems I’m not hearing about – so earlier this week, I went out and about to talk to several apartment complex managers. Found an interesting little tidbit:
Every manager I spoke with said they screen all potential residents over the age of 18 for criminal records. If someone has a felony conviction â ever â they deny the application. Sounds pretty straightforward on the surface.
Turns out that in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, as hundreds of thousands of people were trying to find housing accommodations, the Criminal Background Check(CBC) website overloaded and stopped responding to Louisiana requests. For most of September, there was no way to know who was a felon and who was not. It wasn’t until about six weeks after the queries were made that fax results starting coming in.
Furthermore – while the CBC for other states runs a statewide check, Louisiana requires that a Parish be specified… and charges for each Parish query. Obviously, that would limit how carefully apartments screened.
Managers were faced with limited choices: deny everyone because they couldnât check, or let everyone in (for the same reason).
Soâ¦. Thinking about those crime-ridden complexes that dot Houstonâs cityscape. Which choice do you think they went with?
Iâve read many forum dialogues and posts online, where people are wondering how felons slipped through the âcracksâ?. Now ya know.
Criminal Background Checks
Leave a Reply
Read Next
Well now. This is starting to look pretty bad, overall: In a severe blow to state and local plans for rebuilding hurricane-devastated areas, the Bush administration Tuesday came out against a homeowner bailout proposal that many in Louisiana saw as …
An 18-year old has apparently confessed to murdering a 16-year-old girl out of “morbid curiousity”: Police for the first time revealed a motive in the death of Sugar Land teenager Ashton Glover on Monday, saying suspect Matthew R. McCombs admitted …
The Houston Chronicle’s coverage of an East Harris County serial rapist / robber who targets young men included some interesting, and (to me) surprising information: About 3 percent of American men have been victims of sexual assault or an attempted …
Via memeorandum this morning, I see that a “photo” of Sarah Palin in a bikini has surfaced. Or not. But that’s not going to keep people from pushing it out there. One would think that a little common sense would …
Wow, that’s an amazing bit of detective work. I can imagine a lot of people just opened up their doors to evacuees from New Orleans with little question. It’s very disappointing to think that some of the people who were so generous and open are now left hurt and regretful.
Keep up the good work!
Peace,
Tim
I feel worst for the evacuees who are now in those locations who had no idea, in the chaos of September, what they were getting into. Couples, families with kids, the elderly… they all needed a place to live, and even had there been NO criminally-inclined people coming in with the influx, those complexes were not good places to be.
Yes, there are people in Houston who are now regretting their generosity, but Houston is an enormous and resourceful city. Happily, everybody I spoke to on my side of town was still supportive and working with the people who have lost everything, helping them make the transition.
good luck..finally our crime in new orleans is down.. please keep ’em.. 😉