Catherine Lang was evicted from her apartment outside Chicago after the police saw her swerving in traffic and charged her with driving drunk. A jury found her not guilty, but by then it was too late.
Dalarie Hardimon was evicted after the police chased a man speeding in her van through a residential neighborhood.
And Catherine Garcia was ordered out of the townhouse she and her sons had lived in for 20 years. Their offense? Making too many 911 calls. Most of them came from Ms. Garcia’s intellectually disabled son.
The three women lived in Illinois cities that have adopted what are known as crime-free housing laws, local ordinances that empower the police and landlords to evict tenants who are accused of breaking the law.
The laws were promoted as a way to clear out violent criminals, drug dealers and nuisance tenants who made life miserable for their neighbors. But an investigation by The New York Times and The Illinois Answers Project shows that many cities in Illinois have turned crime-free housing programs into a blunt instrument to oust families for virtually any alleged infraction, no matter how minor.
City police departments have ordered landlords to evict people over commonplace charges including shoplifting and driving while intoxicated. Renters have lost their homes based on accusations that they neglected their pets, failed to keep a close watch on their children and, in one case, eavesdropped on a neighbor. In many cities, a single violation was enough to trigger an eviction.
It did not matter if the person accused was the leaseholder. Entire families have been forced from their homes after a child living there was accused of a crime, or a visitor was arrested. In at least five cases, renters were flagged because they had called 911 to get help or to report a crime that had been committed against them.
Officials in more than a dozen municipalities said that their crime-free programs were fair and that the laws had led to drastic reductions in 911 calls and reports of nuisances in rental communities.
Several noted that they had modified their programs over the years, often in response to complaints from landlords and renters, to ensure that only serious infractions led to evictions.
But many cities, including Belleville, still have ordinances that allow them to seek evictions against virtually anyone the police suspect of breaking the law. Four landlords interviewed by The Times and Illinois Answers said they had each tried to help at least one tenant fight an eviction they thought was unnecessary or unfair. Enforcement records revealed many more cases in which landlords challenged evictions in hopes of keeping good tenants.
Mary Aviles, a landlord in Midlothian, a Chicago suburb, said she had called the police when she noticed a tenant had been leaving dogs caged in the home’s garage. While concerned about the dogs, she was shocked when the police ordered her to evict the tenants without warning; she felt the offense had not endangered others.
If she did not evict her tenant, Ms. Aviles faced fines up to $750 a day or losing her license to run a rental property, common penalties in most cities.
For years, Kate Walz, a lawyer in Chicago, and other housing advocates have sought legislation that would limit or ban crime-free housing programs statewide.
The latest effort, a bill being debated in the Illinois State Senate, would create sweeping regulations for the laws and make it more difficult for people to be evicted if they have not been convicted. The bill is scheduled for a Senate committee vote this week.
More than 100 cities adopted the laws. One in four Illinois residents now lives in a place that compels renters to sign a lease contract that states a tenant can be evicted if accused of a crime.
Many cities require tenants to sign crime-free leases that are so broad that virtually any perceived violation could be grounds for eviction, even if the allegations are never fully investigated or proved.
In Orland Park, renters must sign a contract that says they can be evicted after a single arrest. “Proof of violation shall not require a criminal conviction,” the contract reads.
In DeKalb, a university town about an hour outside Chicago, rental contracts state that tenants can be evicted for any allegation, from a violent felony to a municipal code violation, which can include setting off fireworks or giving alcohol to a minor. The tenant is held accountable for anyone visiting the household, even if the tenant was unaware of the guest’s behavior, or unable to control it.
By 2015, enforcement in some Illinois cities had gotten so aggressive that state legislators passed a law barring city officials from evicting victims of domestic violence for calling 911. Some towns had been counting domestic assault reports at a given address and evicting everyone living there, including the victims.
Despite the reform, The Times and Illinois Answers found hundreds of instances in which cities ordered tenants evicted after a domestic violence call to 911, most of them in Belleville. Mr. Eiskant said his program has never evicted a victim of domestic violence.
In 2021, Oak Forest police found a man overdosing on the floor of his apartment. The next day, police department officials ordered the man’s landlord to evict him. Last year, the police told a landlord to evict a family after a teenager who lived in the home was accused of stealing cars in Chicago with his friends. And at least four families were evicted after someone in the home was caught by the police smoking marijuana.
Oak Forest’s ordinance grants landlords, but not tenants, the opportunity to appeal the city’s decision to issue a crime-free housing violation. Tenants can be left in the dark because city officials send violation letters to landlords and make no effort to communicate with tenants, or explain why the tenants have been targeted for eviction.
In cities that do offer renters a chance to appeal, tenants are generally on their own to hire a lawyer. In many cities, the person ruling on appeals is the police chief or the crime-free housing officer, who would have ordered the eviction in the first place.
Many tenants choose not to appeal, because of the hassle or the belief that they would not win. Some cities do not provide for an administrative appeal, leaving tenants no option but to wait for a formal eviction notice and to fight it in court.