§13663 Ineligibility of Dangerous Sex Offenders for Admission to Public Housing

Summary

Owners of federally assisted housing must refuse to rent to any household that includes a person who is required to register for life on a State sex-offender registry. Public housing agencies must run criminal background checks and check with State and local agencies to find out if an applicant is under a lifetime registration rule, and those State and local agencies must respond to such requests. A public housing agency can do these checks for other owners only if the housing is in the agency’s area and the owner asks; the agency must act for the owner but cannot give the owner the raw records, only decisions based on the owner’s rules. Before taking a negative action because of a registration record, the agency must give the applicant or tenant a copy of the record and a chance to dispute it. The agency may be charged a reasonable fee for these checks and may pass fees to owners when acting for them. Agencies must keep any registration or criminal records confidential, not misuse them, and destroy them when they are no longer needed.