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Parole officers shouldn't be central city landlords

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By The Quad-City Times | Sunday, November 19, 2006 |

Amazing what a little light can reveal. The neighborhood group opposed to the relocation of the Iowa Department of Corrections halfway house disclosed that one of the central city landlords whose properties have generated police calls is parole officer Lewis Washington. Leg work by neighborhood residents and Times reporter Tory Brecht shows that at least one of Washington’s tenants was a parolee who had gone through the halfway house, though was not a direct client of Washington’s.

Washington’s boss, Jim Wayne speaks highly of the parole officer’s service to the DOC. After hearing the neighborhood group’s concerns, Wayne is reviewing a list of some 50 of Washington’s tenants over the past five years to see if any others had been parole clients.

Washington’s properties have been the site of dozens of police calls. Third Ward Alderman Keith Meyer and some neighbors have pursued complaints through the city. Washington said he evicted all the tenants at one four-plex because of those complaints.

He notes the Department of Corrections has lots of rules prohibiting the acceptance of money, services or sex favors from parolees in their care. It also prohibits him from using state parole databases to check on prospective tenants.

Interestingly, Wayne is using that same database to review Washington’s tenants from the last five years. The problem is, he’ll have to keep on using that database to monitor his parole officer’s tenants for the next five, 10 or however many years Washington chooses to stay in the landlord business.

The only way to avoid the appearance of conflict would be to have Wayne continually check his tenants, which would be a real conflict of interest.

This would be less of a conflict if there was little or no history of problems at Washington’s properties. But there has been. The conflict is real. It should end.