Tonight, this month, and stable long-term are three different problems with three different answers. Tell us roughly where you are — everything else on this page is optional.
Housing rights information last verified:
We ask for a ZIP or a city. Never a street address.Start with one phone call. A 211 specialist searches your county's current openings with you — faster than any directory, including this one. Having a record does not change whether they will help you.
Free · 24/7 in most areas
2-1-1
Say: “I need shelter tonight.” Ask them to check emergency beds, motel vouchers, and cold-weather placements in your county.
Southern Tier Housing Coalition
Emergency beds available nightly, with daytime case management to move people toward transitional or permanent housing.
56 Sample Elm Street, Elmira, NY 14901
Intake nightly from 6pm; case management Mon–Fri
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United Way Worldwide / 211
Dial 2-1-1 from most U.S. phones to reach a trained specialist who searches local programs with you — food, rent help, utilities, shelter, treatment, and more. It is the fastest single call when you don't know where to start.
If you are in immediate danger or in crisis, call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or 911 for an emergency.
Every field is optional and nothing you enter is saved. The location and situation fields only change the order of the results. The one checkbox that does narrow the list says so on itself — leave it off and nothing is hidden from you.
9 results nationwide
Southern Tier Reentry Collaborative
Case management for the first year home. One coordinator helps with ID, benefits, housing applications, and employment, and stays with you rather than handing you a list.
Who it's for
Riverbend Community Housing
Transitional beds with a six-month program and a path to independent housing. Intake reviews each person individually and coordinates with supervision when required.
Who it's for
Possible restriction
Southern Tier Civil Legal Services
Free civil legal help for housing, benefits, and record-related matters, plus monthly record-sealing clinics. Not criminal defense.
Who it's for
18 Sample Square, Floor 3, Elmira, NY 14901
Intake line Mon–Thu, 9am–noon
Last verified:
Southern Tier Housing Coalition
Emergency beds available nightly, with daytime case management to move people toward transitional or permanent housing.
Who it's for
56 Sample Elm Street, Elmira, NY 14901
Intake nightly from 6pm; case management Mon–Fri
Last verified:
Genesee Housing Partners
Scattered-site apartments with a rental subsidy that steps down over 24 months, paired with housing case management.
Who it's for
Possible restriction
United Way Worldwide / 211
Dial 2-1-1 from most U.S. phones to reach a trained specialist who searches local programs with you — food, rent help, utilities, shelter, treatment, and more. It is the fastest single call when you don't know where to start.
Who it's for
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Free counselors who help with rental problems, homelessness prevention, and understanding public-housing screening rules. They can explain what a housing authority is allowed to consider.
Who it's for
Last verified:
U.S. Department of Labor
Free career training and education for eligible young people aged 16–24, including housing and meals at residential centers. Admissions review criminal history individually rather than applying a blanket bar.
Who it's for
Last verified:
Root & Rebound
A reentry legal-advocacy organization publishing detailed, plain-language guides on housing, employment, records, and supervision. Their toolkits are among the most thorough free legal-information resources for reentry.
Who it's for
Last verified:
Housing after a conviction is rarely one application. It is usually a sequence — somewhere to sleep this week, somewhere stable in a few months, and the paperwork that connects the two.
Ordinary apartments, rooms, and houses rented by a landlord or a management company. You find them the way anyone finds them — listings, signs, word of mouth — and most run some form of tenant screening.
Time-limited housing attached to a program. Usually a bed or a room for a set number of months, with case management, house rules, and an expected next step.
Housing run by organizations that work specifically with people coming home. Screening is done by people who expect a record and read it in context.
Beds provided nightly, usually first-come or by phone intake, often with daytime case management attached. Some are single-night; some let you stay while you work on a plan.
Programs that pay money rather than provide a unit — security deposits, first month's rent, back rent to stop an eviction, or utility arrears.
Public housing units and Housing Choice Vouchers, administered by a local housing authority. Federal rules set the outer limits; each authority writes its own admissions policy inside them.
Free civil legal help for housing problems: a denial you want reviewed, an eviction, a screening report with the wrong information on it, or a housing authority hearing.
The wider set of same-day options coordinated through 211 and local crisis lines — shelter beds, domestic violence housing, cold-weather placements, and whatever a county currently has open.
This is the part of housing that is easiest to get wrong and most expensive to get wrong. Here is exactly what we can and cannot tell you.
State law. Sets the baseline — often a distance from schools, parks, or childcare, and sometimes a rule about who else lives in the building.
County ordinance. Can add its own distances or its own protected locations on top of the state rule.
Municipal ordinance. A city, town, or village can add more still — and these are the least likely to be published anywhere you can easily find.
All three can apply at the same time, and the strictest one governs. Meeting the state rule does not mean you meet the city rule.
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Where we hold a published source for a restriction, we say potential restriction detected and show you the source. That is the strongest statement we are willing to make.
A flag is a prompt to verify. It is never a clearance, and the absence of a flag is not a clearance either — it usually means the local ordinance is not published anywhere we can read it.
What we will do
Show you the rule we found, cite where it came from, and send you to the office that decides.
What we will never do
Tell you an address is compliant, approved, or safe to sign. Only your registration authority can answer that.
A demonstration of what this looks like in the product. The address below is invented, and no lookup has been performed.
Potential restriction detected
Example address · 400 Sample Avenue, Sample City
A published ordinance covering this area appears to set a distance requirement around schools and public parks. We cannot determine whether it applies to this specific address, whether it applies to you, or whether it is still in force.
This means
Ask your registration authority about this address before you sign a lease, put down a deposit, or accept a placement.
This does not mean
That the address is off-limits. And an address with no flag has not been cleared — it has only not been matched to a source we hold.
The short version, with the government source under each claim. The full guide has the rest.
01
HUD guidance explains that a housing provider's blanket refusal to rent to anyone with a criminal record can violate the Fair Housing Act where it produces an unjustified discriminatory effect, and that arrest records alone do not prove underlying conduct.
02
Federal rules require housing authorities to permanently deny admission in exactly two circumstances: a person subject to a lifetime registration requirement, and a person convicted of manufacturing methamphetamine on the premises of federally assisted housing.
03
A public housing authority denial generally comes with the right to an informal review or hearing. Deadlines are short, often two weeks or less — read the notice the day it arrives.
What we do not ask for
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Informational only — not legal advice