BiggerPockets

Alf - Why don't you create a Group?

I do rent to former felons, provided they meet my screening policy and have been squeaky clean since they got out of prison. I currently have one sex offender and one armed robber renting from me and they have both been fine.

However, you must remember that about 70% of felons return to prison within 18 months - so this is a high risk group. I had another convicted robber in the past that was a nightmare. He beat the crap out of his girlfriend (and the mother of his kid) and had to be tazered by the police after he kicked out the window in the police car. I evicted him and he tried to pull an elaborate scam (pretending that his mother was hurt on the property) and then sued me. I won the lawsuit of course, but he was a nightmare!

I'm very careful about renting to felons - most of them are nothing but worthless scum!

Mike

Although I haven't rented to any ex-offenders, I have worked with them in a minimum security facility before. Unfortunately, Mike is right that many ex-offenders end up being re-incarcerated. I've found in some cases that some of the offenders committed offenses to get themselves re-incarcerated, because they couldn't adjust to life "outside". Others were hardcore, knucklehead thugs who basically will end up spending the rest of their lives in prison. Yet, there are others who got caught after having had 1 or more bad choices, paid their debt to society, and will go on to live fully productive lives.

The last group are the ones I intend to target. Alf, I'm definitely interested in joining that forum. I intend to set up some group homes, targeting a specific class of ex-offenders (with programming that I'll outsource to the appropriate professionals [a LSW, psychiatrist, etc]), as rentals. I intend to help the ex-offenders to transition from prison-life back into society. I like the work that Catherine Rohr is doing in Houston (http://www.prisonentrepreneurship.org/), and I'd like to help provide similar programming--except targeting recently release ex-offenders.

Alf, just curious, how's your experience? Several of my relatives have rented to ex-offenders in the past, and they had similar experiences to Mike's.