In a small studio apartment at the University House, Norman Haga sits on a mattress on the ground that takes up most of the room, going through applications for apartments and copies of a complaint letter he is preparing to send to the Legislature. Haga, in his 50s, is a three-time convicted burglar, who has been out of jail for the past five years. That record, however, disqualifies him from most subsidized low-income housing with rents comparable to the University House, where tenants pay $400 to $450 per month.
“The poor and mostly disabled men and women of the University House are being kicked into the streets by the Cowboy Partners Inc., a corporation of well-to-do alumni of the University of Utah,” Haga writes in the letter he’s drafted. By fall 2011, the now 42-unit boarding house will be a 21-unit lodging reserved for traveling actors and stagehands to use while performing at nearby Pioneer Theatre. The $3.2 million project is funded by private donations. The theater has raised $2 million for the project from private philanthropic sources, such as longtime theater patrons Peter and Catherine Meldrum, who donated $1.2 million. Peter Meldrum is CEO of Myriad Genetics.
Cowboy Partners, the property development and management company renovating the building has offered tenants two months rent-free, $500 of moving assistance for tenants who leave before Aug. 1 and counseling on available affordable housing to ease the tenants into the rough housing market. The tenants also will receive all of their security deposit back, says Dan Lofgren, CEO of Cowboy Partners.
“We’re not naive about the challenges [tenants] will face,” Lofgren says. “We’ve tried to be as thoughtful as we could about it, but the use of that building was going to change whether it was us or someone else.”
The offer doesn’t console Haga much, who says he and other tenants with criminal pasts would likely need more than two months to find housing they can afford and that will accept them.
“There are some tenants who say, ‘I’m going to stay here until they kick me out, and then live on the street,’ ” Haga says. “Because there’s nothing out there.”
In the cramped apartment sitting on one corner of the mattress is “T,” a registered sex offender, who asked that his name be withheld. T was convicted in 1991 of a second-degree felony of sexual abuse of a child. Nearly 20 years without relapse, T still struggles with the stigma of his crime, citing numerous rejections for apartments because of his conviction.
“They say they want former sex offenders to become members of society again, but then they throw all these roadblocks in our way,” T says. “A lot of people just say ‘to hell with it,’ and commit a crime and go back to prison, where they got a place to sleep and have food every day.”
The fear that ex-cons might be pushed back into crime for the sake of “three hots and a cot”—as Haga describes the minimal guarantees of prison life—are troubling for local housing advocates. Sharon Abegglen, the director of housing for the Salt Lake Community Action Program, says her office has been working with Lofgren to see that the tenants have resources to find housing they can afford and that will accept them. For low-income Utahns with criminal records, however, that doesn’t leave a lot of options. “Frankly, what we tell them is to go to smaller landlords that do not run criminal background checks,” Abegglen says.
When Salt Lake City officially evicted the last tenants of The Regis, a single-room occupancy hotel on State Street in March, the city’s Redevelopment Agency had counted on those units being replaced with 49 new units at the renovated Rio Grande Hotel at 428 W. 300 South, plus the 60 units available at Palmer Court, at 999 S. Main. Both locations, however, include restrictions on sex offenders and individuals with criminal records.
“There’s no replacement housing going up for that population,” Abegglen says. While Abegglen says SLCAP struggles to find housing for indigent tenants with criminal records, she also says SLCAP has its hands full dealing with the demand for housing for all low-income demographics, especially families. Abegglen’s organization regularly helps individuals and families looking for assistance with security deposits for apartments, usually several hundred requests a month. She recalls one time that her organization helped a sex offender with a security deposit, only to have the neighbors complain to the city the next day.
“People are leery, very leery [of sex offenders].” Abegglen says.
Councilman Luke Garrott, whose district include the University House, recognizes that the failure to address this kind of market is bad policy, but he also recognizes a big factor in the debate goes back to federal rules.
“It’s important we don’t stigmatize these people and create a radical, two-tier affordable housing market,” Garrott says. “But federal rules may be causing that to happen.”
Garrott says some of the major workforce housing projects, like the redevelopment of the old State Street SROs by developer Ben Logue, which are designed to create a mix of low- and middle-income units as well as retail outlets, are the only projects viable in the current economy. But the federal tax credits the developer will use come with strings attached that will shut out those with criminal records.
“It seems to me that most of the housing built in Salt Lake right now is using high-density federal tax credits,” Garrott says. “They’re the only people who can get loans.” Federal rules or not, Garrott also recognizes that housing rights for ex-cons and sex offenders is not the most politically popular issue to fight for, which is why discussions of the subject often get left on the backburner.
Meanwhile, residents like Haga and T are attempting to find new homes. For Haga, living on $674 a month of disability pay, he and his wife struggle with rental applications that can cost up to $45 to pay for background checks. T also worries about where he’ll end up, since he is currently finishing up a bachelor’s degree in history at the University of Utah, where he also works.
“They either want to keep me in prison forever or have me sleeping under the viaduct in a cardboard box,” he says.
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Eric
S. Peterson:
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Ah, f*&k it!
Last post for me. Probably for good as I am already embarassed and will be more so once I spill the beans on this public venue. Probably won't come around here anymore, though I'll miss it. This is the only place I post to in internetland. No facebook, no myspace, no other blogs, nothing.
I post here because I like the writers, the stories they provide and the publication. I've read the Weekly for years. I enjoy debating and have found some very smart individuals here that have provided me with some excellent conversations, at times, resulting in me changing my opinion.
I've been very impressed with certain writers here, know that some of them have paid attention to the things I've written, and do not want to leave them with the thought that I, too, am just another common a**hole. But maybe I am? For my sake, I hope not.
Listen, I've had some experiences in my life that literally propel me toward saying the things I've said regarding the men mentioned in this article.
This article set off certain emotions that I am prisoner to. These emotions are destructive and foolish, but inescapable. Wish I could purge certain things from my mind and never think of them again. In that sense, I completely empathize with these dudes. Sh*t happens in life, don't it gentlemen? Most people are suffering in one way or another, trying to live from one day to the next. I understand that. I live that.
I am far from cruel and am more compassionate than any of you might believe after reading my words here. I am kind to people. I care about people. If I had the choice, I would not have Tony or Norman (or any other human being) sleeping on the streets and would prefer that every person has equal access to life's basic necessities, like housing.
Jesus, but ain't this hard?
I would like to apologize to Tony and Norman. I don't know you. I don't know what you've suffered through in life. I don't know why you've done the things you've done. You've submitted to the system and have apparently done what is necessary to satisfy your terms. You guys deserve a place to live, regardless of what you've done, and society should not make finding the things you need harder to come by because of your past. Of course, I would prefer that you provide those things for yourselves, if you are able.
Everybody should have a place to live, food to eat, access to medical care, and the chance to do better by themselves, the people that know them, and society in general.
This doesn't mean I like you, Norman. I have a feeling that you've done some very bad things to people and my instincts are pretty sharp. But I owe you an apology, none the less. I am sorry and wish you well.
Amy, I would like to commend you on your efforts here. You did a fine job stating your case and your compassion and understanding are personal assets that will contribute to a good life for you. I have those same traits, but mine have been trampled a bit and are hard to access sometimes. I'll try harder.
I can't believe I'm going to hit the submit button...
Adios!
Actually Don Kauffer, I never said I had been out of jail five years. What I told to Eric Peterson was that I had been out of prison since August 2005. I can understand the misreporting because many do not distinguish between jail and prison. You do not have to take my word for this though, there were two witnesses besides Eric that were present and a digital recording was made.
Now that we have reached the root of your incense and invective the problem still remains. The issue was never about me. I and "T" were the vehicles (you still rent claptrap vehicles in N.M. and Wa. correct, but lost your computer contract to either Granite or Jordon school district because you were renting ten year old junk as late model computers right?) of the article. The intent behind the article was two-fold: bringing to awareness that low income housing is being razed and converted, but not replaced; and the plight that ex-felons/cons are subjected to in finding the necessity of life called housing.
I generally will not go into a persons crime as a matter of integrity. In the case of 'T', I will give the circumstances of his crime but not his name. "T" was 19 at the time and at work he fondled the breast of a 15 year old employee. For this act he received a 1 to 15. 'T' was also ordered to pay all counseling bills that the girl received for the act. 'T' did all 15 years day for day. He never received a bill for the girls treatment because she never needed or wanted any. So here you are also wrong. Sexual predator my @$$. Repeat offender my @$$. You not knowing anything about the situation but mouthing off VERY TRUE. Your bias is showing.
You are also mouthing off about no test available for bipolar disease. A simple blood test reveals abnormal levels of adrenaline, l-dopamine, and serotonin. Examination of a deceased bipolar individuals brain reveals holes in the brain similar to that of a schizophrenic. In fact, it is thought that bipolar disease and schizoprenia anchor one end of a disease that has a spectrum. Bipolar can also be seen as abnormally active area's in a PET scan that people without bipolar or schizoprenia do not show.
The situation is, as the article brought out, is the bias or prejudice that is shown towards people that criminal records, whether on paper or not, when they attempt to find housing, or for that matter, employment. Everyone screams about protection and the revolving door syndrome but fails to realize that they create the situation by refusing housing that the men and women can afford. This situation is exacerbated by the claims of various housing authorities that HUD has resrictions. The claim of restrictions by HUD is bogus in all cases, except those of sexual and violent offenders, it is an artificial construct by the local housing authorities. I determined that bold statement by directly addressing the Salt Lake City and County Housing authorities and contacting HUD. Though eligble, I did not choose government housing. The reasons are my own.
When a person breaks through all the hogwash, they find that the various agencies attempt to restrict them far beyond what is sane. In some of the housing a person cannot have their own internet connection and must use the filtered internet connection provided. Drug offenders must submit to weekly drug tests. In some of the housing your entry in and out of your SRO is electronically recorded and your visitors must sign in and out and show picture ID each time. In that same unit all of the hallways are recorded 24/7 and the staff can and do enter and sometimes search your residence without notification required by law. That same unit also asserts, if you ask, informs that they only have studio's; yet I have it on paper that they do have one bedrooms available, and yes I am on the list a year down the line though I would refuse that unit because of the restrictions.
As I said before Mr. Kaufer, you lack credibility and from the face of it, even knowledge of what you speak of. BTW, do you still live in that nice Rambler with the gravel U drive-way in Highland.
For all you idiots that wish to make comments about either my disability or my maybe having burglarized dozens of houses.
I am bipolar with schizophrenic tendencies. To the ignorant it means I have mood shifts that make PMS seem like a sunday picnic in the park. Those mood shifts are so severe that I hallucinate at times. You like sleep. Well sometimes my disorder keeps me from sleeping for over a week at a time. My condition is severe enough that I am moitored three times a week and can easily be placed in jail for a week or two for not showing at one of those minitored sessions. It is no fun having the phsiological/psychological condition I have and I will gladly trade my Social Security for you mental and physical health.
Hayduke, your name would not be Don Kauffer would it; the guy who stole a consignment of $30,000 from Norman would it. Was it your wife that gave a poster of Norman given to her by the South Salt Lake Police to a non-witness (Don Johnson) turning that person into a witness. Just how did you pursuade the court to disallow that evidence (you can check the appeals on line). You have no credibility.
For those that wish to make smart remarks about what I may or may not have robbed. Just think, all that nice hardware hanging on your wall is useless. A nice effort by somone that is bilking you because if one wanted to enter your business, it is a simple matter. Just think of what I could have done if I were not trying to stay legal. Yet here you are justifying yourselves in putting me down and keeping me down.
Fortunately, just after this article a kind lady saw fit to allow me a place to rent, even though she knew my background.
Thanks to this experience, I have thought of seeking federal grants to help others in this same situation. I also learned that the excuses given in the article of HUD not allowing people with criminal records is a convienent excuse, even if a bogus excuse.
I thank all you for the experience. Just remember, I am trying to keep it legal.
I wonder if Norman's middle name is Andrew. Looks very plausible. If so, he was in jail as late as December 2009, meaning he has not been out of the system for five years as he claimed in this article.
Additionally there is some very interesting reading (court records) available involving Norman Andrew Haga and his criminal escapades, including one victim finding that Norman had literally defecated on the floor of his business after burglarizing it. Nice touch there, Norm.
They're moderating comments to put a chilling effect on discussion. I used zero foul language, but since I disagreed with Hayduke - especially his barb about disability - I guess that makes me a defender of sex offenders and my opinion null and void. Why even have a comment section, if you only allow one-sided comments?