One evening, shortly after my brother was released from a halfway house to live with me, we stopped at a grocery store. As we walked to the car, my brother paused to speak with someone outside the store. When he caught up with me, I asked how he knew the man. “We were locked up together,” he told me. When I asked where the man was staying now, my brother’s answer revealed a harsh reality: His former fellow inmate was living in a homeless shelter. As I pulled this thread, I came to understand the devastating frequency with which formerly incarcerated people return not to stable homes but to homelessness.
This intersection of incarceration and homelessness creates a stark illustration of how our democratic systems often fail those who are most vulnerable, not just through explicit legal barriers but through practical impossibilities. While we often discuss voter disenfranchisement among people with felony records separate from the challenges unhoused people face, the overlay of these circumstances creates a uniquely marginalized group that deserves our focused attention and advocacy.
In most states across America, people with felony convictions face de jure disenfranchisement. This legal legacy is deeply rooted in our nation’s history of racial discrimination and continues to expel millions of people from our democracy. The Sentencing Project estimated that 4 million Americans were barred from voting in the 2024 elections because of felony disenfranchisement laws. While some states have moved toward reform, many maintain strict barriers that extend well beyond an individual’s period of incarceration, leaving millions of Americans—both incarcerated and not—without a say in our democracy because of felony disenfranchisement laws with racist roots.
In Washington, D.C., we’ve made historic progress in addressing this issue. In 2020, my bill, the Restore the Vote Amendment Act, made the District of Columbia the first jurisdiction to restore voting rights to all incarcerated residents—rights they never should have lost. With this legislation, the District of Columbia joins the states of Maine and Vermont—the only two states to never ban incarcerated people from voting—as the only jurisdictions in the country that allow residents in prison to vote.
As chair of the D.C. Council’s Committee on Housing, I have observed how practical obstacles can create de facto disenfranchisement even when formal legal barriers are removed. In the early years of our democracy, the right to vote was an exclusive privilege for Americans who owned property, and for a long time, poor people, or paupers, were explicitly excluded from voting. While we have evolved past such restrictions to a more inclusive democracy, many unhoused people remain effectively disenfranchised by barriers. Research from University of Southern California Professor Dr. Dora Kingsley Vertenten found that as few as 1 in 10 homeless people vote in U.S. elections.
The path to voting for unhoused individuals presents numerous obstacles. Without a permanent address, many cannot complete even the basic step of voter registration. Traditional identification requirements, transportation limitations, and lack of information about polling locations create additional barriers. Even when unhoused individuals successfully register to vote using a shelter address or designated point of contact, maintaining consistent communication about candidates, polling locations, voting dates, and ballot initiatives proves challenging.
Many people returning from prison are generally disenfranchised. Even in states where formerly incarcerated people have had their voting rights restored, they can remain disenfranchised in practice, especially if they are unhoused. The Prison Policy Initiative found that formerly incarcerated people are nearly 10 times as likely to be homeless. This creates a particularly pernicious form of double disenfranchisement. These individuals face not only the practical challenges of voting without a permanent address but also a deeply troubling exclusion from democracy because of their involvement with the criminal justice system. The combination often results in complete civic isolation.
This isolation is perpetuated by societal stigma and systemic neglect. Many individuals in this situation report feeling invisible to elected officials, their voices effectively silenced by overlapping systems of exclusion. The result is a self-perpetuating cycle where those most impacted by policy decisions are least able to influence them.
In D.C., we have taken steps to address these compounded challenges. Beyond restoring voting rights for incarcerated residents, I was proud to expand residents’ rights and human dignity by establishing homelessness as a protected class under Washington, D.C.’s Human Rights Act. This designation provides legal protections and recognition for unhoused individuals, acknowledging their right to full participation in social and civic life.
However, more comprehensive solutions are still needed. These might include:
The legal community has a crucial role to play in addressing double disenfranchisement. Attorneys can volunteer with voter protection hotlines, provide pro bono assistance with rights restoration, and advocate for legislative reforms. Bar associations can support public education efforts and help develop best practices for serving these populations.
More broadly, we must recognize the right to vote as a fundamental right in a democracy, not a privilege. We must undo the terrible legacy of Jim Crow-era disenfranchisement laws by acknowledging that when we allow systems to persist that effectively deny this right to our most vulnerable neighbors, we diminish our democracy and perpetuate cycles of marginalization.
The story of the man my brother knew from prison—living in a shelter and facing barriers to civic participation—reminds us that behind every statistic about disenfranchisement are real people who need to participate in our democratic process. Excluding people with felony convictions and unhoused people has not made us safer or decreased poverty.
As we work to create a more inclusive democracy, we must pay particular attention to those who face multiple barriers to participation. Only by recognizing and actively addressing these compounded challenges can we ensure that every voice is heard. And those who have lived and survived multiple barriers might help shape more effective policies to reduce crime and poverty and serve a greater good for all Americans.
