A sentence may end. The barriers often do not.
The Not For Rent Documentary Film examines the housing barriers people with felony records can face while trying to rebuild their lives after incarceration.
Directed by Matt Duhamel, who brought his own lived experience of incarceration to the project, the film explores background checks, rental restrictions, stigma, and the difficult reality of trying to find a safe place to call home after release.
The Not For Rent Documentary Film examines the rental housing barriers people with felony records can face while attempting to rebuild their lives after incarceration.
Through deeply personal stories, the film looks beyond policies and background checks to show what housing restrictions can mean for individuals and families trying to establish stability and move forward.
Mike is a registered sex offender living in a tent near a local ravine while struggling to find traditional housing. His story explores homelessness, rejection, social stigma, and the difficulty of finding a landlord willing to look beyond his past.
Raising two young daughters, Shayenne and James face the possibility of losing their housing because of a drug-related felony conviction from years earlier. Their experience shows how housing instability can affect not only the person with the record, but a spouse, children, and the emotional health of an entire family.
Tonia lives with disabilities following a serious car accident while also dealing with the consequences of a felony conviction nearly three decades old. As she tries to secure housing, her story raises a difficult question: how long should a past conviction continue to determine someone's opportunities?
Not For Rent! also examines Utah's Good Landlord Program and the debate surrounding criminal-history rental restrictions. Supporters argued that the program promoted responsible property management and neighborhood safety, while critics questioned whether it created additional barriers for people attempting to successfully reenter their communities.
Read More About the Good Landlord ProgramTHE QUESTION AT THE HEART OF THE FILM“Doesn’t everybody deserve a place to live?”
Alongside these personal stories, the documentary includes perspectives from advocates, professors, landlords, policymakers, law enforcement, and others involved in the housing and reentry conversation.
Housing, reentry, stigma, and the difficult work of rebuilding life after incarceration.
The Not For Rent Documentary Film explores housing as more than a rental agreement. For someone rebuilding after incarceration, a stable home can influence nearly every other part of life.
Without that stability, finding work, reconnecting with family, maintaining relationships, and establishing a sense of belonging can become significantly harder.
Leaving incarceration can mean rebuilding many parts of life at once. Stable housing provides a foundation from which someone can look for work, meet obligations, reconnect with community, and begin establishing a new routine.
When someone with a criminal record cannot secure housing, spouses, children, parents, and other family members can experience the consequences as well. What appears to be an individual reentry problem can quickly become a family crisis.
The film also examines the social consequences of carrying a felony record. Repeated rejection can affect more than housing options — it can influence self-worth, belonging, relationships, and whether someone believes a genuine second chance is possible.
AT THE HEART OF THE FILMHousing is not simply where someone sleeps. It can determine whether rebuilding is possible.
Not For Rent! asks audiences to consider what successful reentry actually requires. If people are expected to work, support their families, follow the law, and become contributing members of their communities, access to stable housing becomes an important part of that conversation.
Not For Rent! approached the housing issue from more than one perspective. The documentary combined personal stories from people and families affected by criminal-record housing barriers with interviews from advocates, researchers, housing professionals, educators, law enforcement, and policymakers.
The individuals below represent some of the professional voices featured in the film. Their interviews provided additional context around reentry, housing policy, stigma, landlord concerns, public safety, and the challenges of creating meaningful second chances.
Titles and affiliations reflect the time of production.
ACLU of Utah
Utah State Representative and sponsor of the 2017 Good Landlord Amendments
Utah Prisoner Advocate Network
Associate Professor,
Weber State University
Professor of Sociology,
Brigham Young University
Weber County Sheriff
at the time of filming
Apartment industry and
Good Landlord Program perspective
Researcher on social stigma
and exclusion
These professional interviews were only one part of Not For Rent!. The documentary also featured personal stories from people living with felony records, individuals facing additional housing restrictions, and families trying to establish stability after incarceration.
Those lived experiences gave the policy discussion a human dimension. Housing rules and background checks were not presented simply as abstract regulations, but through the people whose homes, relationships, families, and futures could be affected by them.
Not For Rent! moved beyond production into public screenings, community conversation, critical response, and wider distribution.
Not For Rent! was released and screened at Weber State University as part of a public event focused on housing, reentry, and the challenges people with felony records can encounter while trying to rebuild their lives.
The screening created an opportunity to move the conversation from the documentary itself into a broader discussion about housing, criminal records, community reintegration, and second chances.
View the Weber State Event
The Utah Film Festival later published a review of Not For Rent!, discussing the film’s personal stories, its exploration of housing barriers, and its focus on the difficulty of rebuilding life after a felony conviction.
The review was published independently by the Utah Film Festival.
Read the Film ReviewFollowing its original release, Not For Rent! became part of the Cinema Epoch documentary catalog, extending the film beyond its original Utah screening and community audience.
Metamora Films develops documentary and social-impact projects centered on justice, stigma, lived experience, and meaningful human stories.
