The Real Estate Tycoon Who Couldn't Rent a House

Yusuf Dahl was released from prison as a 23year old, but decades later still is the subject to legal discrimination thanks to long-dead segregationist Strom Thurmond.

Strom Thurmond, was a U.S. Senator from South Carolina from 1954 to 2003

At 18 years old, Yusuf Dahl was sentenced to prison for dealing drugs. He served five and a half years of a ten year sentence. Since his release at age 23, his life has been almost a fairy tale story of redemption, rehabilitation, and forgiveness. It’s exactly what you would want to happen to a kid who made mistakes, stemming from his perception that there were few options for advancement in his inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood. He attended college, then an Ivy league graduate school, and went on to lead a center for entrepreneurship at an elite private college.   But there is a rupture in the arc of his story.  Dahl is legally allowed to be discriminated against if he tries to rent a house, as he found this out when he tried to do just that. The Strom Thurmond Amendment legalizes discrimination against felons of drug crimes, and drug crimes alone. As the past president of the apartment association of Southeastern Wisconsin, and as the founder of the Real Estate Lab in Allentown, PA, legalized discrimination is exactly the kind of obstacle Dahl fights against on behalf of other would-be renters who haven’t experienced his level of monetary or professional success.  Dahl is now trying to reform the law and to raise awareness, which is often the lowest hanging fruit, but in this case necessary. I had literally not heard of the Strom Thurmond Amendment in housing discrimination before interviewing Yusuf Dahl on my podcast The Gist.

Yusuf Dahl

 

Mike Pesca: So before we get to South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, let's start from wherever you want to  in your history. Going to jail, getting out of jail, going to Princeton––take it from wherever you want.

Yusuf Dahl: Let's start with the fact that we know that zip code matters in the United States of America. And unfortunately, as a young person, I was born into a zip code where over half of the black men by the age of 30 have some level of criminal justice involvement. My older brother was in prison, my father was in prison, and, unfortunately, at 18 years old, I found myself in prison for the distribution of drugs.

Was it a state prison?

It was a state prison. But actually, at the time, Wisconsin was sending so many people to prison––and it wasn't just Wisconsin, this was at the height of the war on drugs––and I ended up serving most of my time in Oklahoma in a private prison because there just wasn't capacity in the state of Wisconsin to house me.

So I assume this made it nearly impossible for any loved ones to visit you?

I never had a visit while I was in Oklahoma.

And how long were you there?

I was in Oklahoma for four years.

 What was your level of education going in, and did you receive any education or gain any skills while in prison?

 I had my high school diploma when I went in, and I was very fortunate when I was behind bars because I just so happened to do time with a person who had made the very poor decision of defrauding the Kohler Corporation. And as you and I both know, we should never defraud anyone, but you certainly don't wanna defraud a company with a town named after it. And Jesse, that was his name, received a God awful sentence for defrauding the Kohler Corporation. But this guy was brilliant. He had a master's degree in engineering, and he took an interest in me. And under Jesse's tutelage, with his support, I learned how to program computers, how to repair computers, and more importantly, how I could get into that industry after I was released without a college degree.

 And you started doing computer programming thereafter?

 Well, it's never that easy, right? I started off at a warehouse two hours away, but I stayed with it. And fortunately, and as I told you, Jesse had not only taught me about technology, but that there's a way to get into that field without a college degree, typically through industry certificates. So I had saved some money while I was behind bars, I had a hundred dollars and I took my Microsoft exam. And through that credential, after probably about nine months or a year, I was able to catch a break and gain meaningful employment.

 They were looking for people with skills, knowledge, ability, and you proved this in the workplace. Where do you get the idea to further your education, which actually would take you to one of the most prominent colleges in America, Princeton?

 You know, it's interesting, I can distinctly trace it back to the moment I was sentenced. I'm in this courtroom and of everyone there––the judge, the stenographer, the district attorney––no one looks like me. It's an all white courtroom with the exception of myself. I had just come from a holding cell that had 10 young men who looked just like me. I was facing like 65 years, and so in theory, the judge could have put me away for the rest of my life––that's how Draconian some of these drug sentencing laws are. And to everyone else in that courtroom, it was just their 10 o'clock sentencing––they were talking about what they were gonna have for lunch in an hour and what they did over the weekend. I just remember sitting there and thinking that my f-ing life could be over in literally a matter of minutes. I kind of had this epiphany, and I remember thinking clearly that if I was going to get another chance, if I was fortunate enough to not be sentenced for the rest of my life behind bars, that I was gonna use every moment moving forward to educate myself and put myself on a different trajectory. So I ended up getting a job with––you'll remember this company, maybe the younger audience won't––but a company named Reader's Digest. They used to publish a very, very prominent magazine, and at the time they offered essentially unlimited tuition reimbursement for employees. And Mike, I hit them with a tuition bill so high, six months later, they changed the policy and limited it to $5,000 a year.

 Reader's Digest did go into bankruptcy, didn't they? I'm wondering if that was because of your tuition bill.

 I don't know, but they sure changed the policy.

 Anyway, so you are now pursuing education. You are now making money, a lot of money in the field of computers, right?

 Yeah, yeah, I was very fortunate.

And you're going to Ottawa now?

I ended up going to a school called Ottawa University, and it was a school that catered to adults returning back to college. I was a non-traditional student. At this point, I was maybe 26 years old. 

But tell me about going to Princeton.

I lived in a community right in the central city, and the quality of life really deteriorated. I mean, it was to the point where I was coming out of my house and there were empty drug vials and prostitution happening right on the corner. I remember having to make a decision of whether I was going to move from that community or if I was gonna do something to address it. But the status quo was just not an option. 

I ended up buying a neighbor's house and at the time didn't have any experience––I didn't know about the housing business––but bought it really to preserve my own home for my own wellbeing. I fixed up that property, rented it out, and then bought the neighbor’s property on the other side of me, and I did the same thing. Within five years I had 200 units of housing, residential and commercial. 

I was elected to serve as the president of the apartment association of Southeastern Wisconsin, that took me to Madison quite a bit, lobbying for housing policy. It was through that work that I got connected with a professor at Princeton. We started talking and he said, “have you ever considered graduate school and being able to perhaps have an even larger impact?” That ignited this idea, and the more I thought about it, the more I decided that was something I wanted to pursue. 

So you go to Princeton, you get your graduate degree. Did you have an idea of what you wanted to go into? And how did that match with what actually happened?

Yeah, so when I went to Princeton, the thought was I wanted to do work in housing policy and ultimately go back to Milwaukee and maybe try to do some low income housing tax credit deals or stuff like this. But how do I elevate the reach of the work that I can do in housing policy? And how can I inform housing policy based on my own experiences? At the time that I was there, right as I was graduating, there was a presidential election, and Ben Carson was a person that I looked up to. I read Gifted Hands. I was every bit inspired. The guy's story is without a doubt incredibly inspiring; he's a brilliant person. But when I started to understand what his mandate was at HUD, it just didn't make sense for myself to try to go work in housing policy when the person in charge of it had a completely different vision of what an agency like that can and should be doing. And so I ended up getting an opportunity instead to build a program for innovation and entrepreneurship at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, which was about an hour or so from Princeton. I ended up doing that for about five years.

So we haven't yet gotten to the Strom Thurmond Amendment. Take me there. When did you and the racist segregationist Senator cross paths?            

I was recruited to lead an education organization in Allentown, Pennsylvania. At the time, my daughter was a rising ninth grader, so she was starting high school, and I looked at some school districts that would best support her, and one, she's a good student, but two, she's also a very good tennis player. A lot of her self-confidence as a young woman, especially as a very tall young woman, kind of came from her athletic abilities. We had identified a school district that we thought she would do well in, and started looking for housing. It was a crazy housing market at the time, and we found a townhome that was in the school district, and I said, “well, let's just move here. This will work for the time being, and if everything goes well, we'll maybe buy a house in this community and settle down.” But I could not secure housing in the desired school district. I was repeatedly denied housing solely because of my drug distribution conviction from 25 years ago. I could have bought that townhome for cash, that's just the fact of the matter. It's insane. The woman there said, “if you have a problem with this, we're gonna send out a letter and you can contact the company.” It ends up being some private equity firm, and I don't have time to deal with it. I have to secure housing. We ended up having to move to a community where the Commonwealth had designated the school district as failing.

And worse, the school was so under-resourced, they didn't even have a tennis program. It was kind of at that moment where the light bulb went off for me, because I said to myself, “if this can happen to someone like me, and more importantly, if it can happen to someone like my daughter”––because that's the thing that really pisses me off about all of this: that anytime you impose a lifetime exclusion of fair housing protections, you're not just impacting the person who made that mistake however long ago, you're impacting their children. I just could not sit back and do nothing knowing that this is the law of the land. In 2024, parts of housing policy in this country are being driven by legislation authored by someone like Strom Thurmond.

That's unconscionable. But while I think it's accurate to talk about the Strom Thurmond and the “Thurmond Amendment” you and I both know that one senator can't pass an amendment. Three years after Strom Thurmond sponsored the Thurmond Amendment, which was passed by voice vote––which is to say out of all the other senators, no one disagreed––Strom Thurmond and Joe Biden co-authored the 1991 Crime Act. So you have the current President of the United States who voted for this very amendment as a senator, and then partnered with the author of this amendment.  I think if this administration were pressed on it, or even knew about it, they'd see the problem. They'd be appalled, right? Don't you think Joe Biden, if you could get his attention on this, would say, “you're right, something needs to be done?”

Well, you're 100% correct. It’s almost a 40-year-old piece of legislation. It's antiquated and it's clearly informed by the hysteria of the 1980s in the war on drugs. The challenge I've had, and you know this better than even I do, is that politicians think about––and not all of them but a lot of them––the political implications of what they're supporting, not necessarily the policy implications. It's not necessarily how many people can they help, it's what's the political juice they’re gonna get from this squeeze, if you will. I remember I got an introduction to a conservative leader in the Senate and I'm talking to his chief of staff who told me flat out, “I don't disagree with this policy and what you're trying to do, but why should the Senator care? How is this going to help the Senator get votes? How does the Senator go on Fox News and say that repealing the Thurmond Amendment is good for this country, and for his district, and his state?” That’s the reality that I'm up against, which is trying to get people to care.

Well, the answer is, I'm not gonna tell you anything you haven't thought of, the answer is Senator John Fetterman. He's being assailed from the left by progressives. He needs a couple of wins to show that he's innovative and has the best interests of his constituents and people who need help in mind. He could bring up Yusuf Dahl and maybe his tennis-playing daughter who's an extremely inspirational, sympathetic figure. And there you go. It sounds easy, but I would think that that would be a scenario that could work.

How about I share this one with you? I thought about that. And listen, I’ve got nothing against John Fetterman. John Fetterman was in fact going to introduce the bill to repeal the Thurmond Amendment. He was going to make this a part of his criminal justice platform, and as you know, the Senator has been very vocal about extended second chances. His team had told me he was going to sponsor this legislation, and I got a legislative text with his name on it. The day before I'm scheduled to go to DC to meet the Senator, I get a call from his team saying that due to an internal communications issue, Senator Fetterman will no longer be able to sponsor this particular legislation. And again, I don't know what the backstory is on all of that, but the fact of the matter is there was some calculation by his team that this legislation is not important enough. And do you know why that is, Mike? It's because most people who suffer under this discriminatory legislation, they're not like me. They haven't had the good fortune and the good luck that I've had, and so they're not able to mobilize and advocate. It’s really, you hate to generalize, but for the most part, it is a powerless coalition. We're talking about people who have been convicted of either possession with the intent to deliver, or drug distribution and manufacturing. For whatever reason, there was not enough in that legislation for John Fetterman to think that this was worth pursuing in the Senate. Do you know how pissed off I was? I do want to say I ended up going to DC anyway because I was meeting with some other legislators, and I ran into Congressman Maxwell Frost and he has decided to pick this up.

He's the youngest member of Congress. He's from Florida.

Yep, and experienced some housing challenges. Look, we can get the progressives to support this. Even though Fetterman didn't lead on this bill, I'm sure he's gonna vote for it. I don't see him voting against this. The challenge I've had is finding a Republican, which has been really frustrating for me because I'm an industry person. I have the support of the Ohio Apartment Association and the Wisconsin Apartment Association. The Strom Thurmond Amendment is legislation that limits opportunities and does nothing to advance the industry or public safety. This is a no-brainer, but again, trying to find and make that case that a Republican should care, that's really been the challenge.

When did Fetterman pull out? When was this meeting scheduled to happen?

This was about two months ago. And again, I don't know the backstory of all of that. His team has been very supportive and we do have support. There is a bill and it's called the Fair Future Act. We're just looking to find a Republican who will co-sponsor this legislation. And this is something I've made clear to every politician who's taken an interest in this issue: I didn't spend the last two and a half years of my life fighting for a bill for you to take some political position that's not going anywhere. This has to be bipartisan. This is common sense legislation, and I refuse to go away until I find a Republican who will support this legislation and ultimately help us introduce it.

Right, and there are Republicans who actually believe that prison should be about reform. I would say anyone who calls it the corrections system is at least by implication, buying into the idea that what you're talking about should happen––that it is not purely punitive and once someone is convicted of a crime and serves a years-long sentence, that person shouldn’t be punished forever. 

As someone who's driven by policy, I hate to be so overwhelmed by a personal story or anecdote, but you have a good one. You have a great story. You're the kind of person for whom someone who's pro-business oriented would want to highlight. So, though obviously there are your challenges, I think you and this message have a lot of  points in your  favor.

Well, two things, Mike. One is that this, it's just completely arbitrary. This only impacts people with drug distribution convictions. Do you know that 65% of the people sentenced to prison for drug distribution for cocaine in Wisconsin were sentenced for five grams or less of cocaine? I hope most of your audience doesn't know how much that is, but I'll tell them that that's a good night. You’re not getting rich off of five grams of cocaine. This is someone who was using and was caught with it and because of poor legal representation or an overly aggressive district attorney, ended up getting charged with possession with intent, and now has no fair housing protections.

To interrupt, weren't the laws written so that for rock or crack cocaine, any amount would be a distribution charge? And there has been some reform on that, so there has been some recognition that that was improper.

A hundred percent, and the other point I would make is that I had the good fortune of being able to sit down with Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin when I was in DC. The case I made to Senator Johnson is that with the Thurmond Amendment, for someone who's paid their debt to society, you're not allowing the market mechanisms of risk to play out in those rental screening decisions. In my case, credit score doesn't matter and rental history doesn't matter. But, the fact is, I can still go to a bank right now and get a million dollar loan. Why? Because they're not gonna fixate on something I did 25 years ago. They're gonna look at things that matter for assessing my risk right now.

That's a great argument. This bill is hurting landlords, and I could see Ron Johnson, who's a business guy, responding to that. I mean, maybe there are some other elements of your story that specifically Ron Johnson wouldn't respond to, but yes, you're a better risk than maybe someone who doesn't get flagged or someone who doesn't have your credit history. It is crazy. It's wild. 

I just wanna zoom out and consider the lesson that you represent in terms of criminal justice and reform. Two things: One, would you say––and I'm sure there are so many people who the criminal justice system ignores, locks away, never gives a chance––but would you say that you are, you don't have to be egotistical, that you are exceptional in some ways? It wasn't just that you were lucky. It's that you have skills, you have a personality type, you weren't so abused by the system. And I'm sure so many people in prison have profound mental health issues. So I guess the question is, how much can the exceptional person such as yourself convince us that the system doesn't work? Or do you say actually, if the system were reformed in a better way, that it really could help most of the people in the system in a way it's not working now?

First of all, I wanna be clear: I'm the exception, but I'm not exceptional. I say that with all seriousness and humility. I've been very fortunate, but just talk to my 16 year old daughter, and she’ll say there's nothing exceptional about her dad. But I've been very lucky, and so I am the exception. If we wanna talk about how was it that I got so lucky, a big part of that is that I got home when I was 23 and I was still young enough to be able to do all of these other things. So, at the end of the day, we know that we're over-sentencing people, especially for non-violent, non-serious crimes, but the key is what are you doing with those folks while they're in there. If all you're doing is stuffing as many inmates as possible in a facility for the lowest possible cost, you're just creating a vicious cycle that's gonna cost society more in every regard––and safety and money and everything else in the long run.

Yusuf Dahl is a graduate of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. He is now the Director of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Lafayette College, a co-founder of the Real Estate Lab in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and he is campaigning to try to reform the so-called Thurmond Amendment, which discriminates against certain categories of people who've paid their debt to society, as we used to say. Thank you so much, Yusuf Dahl.

Thanks, Mike.