Though he peppered Jersey City landlords with a flurry of applications, future restaurant owner Candido Ortiz couldn’t find a place to live in the same city where he worked. Once landlords ran a background check, he would routinely be denied, or not hear back.
Ortiz had served 28 years in prison for conspiracy to distribute narcotics and possession of a firearm. In 2016, President Barack Obama commuted his close-to-50-year sentence, also granting clemency to hundreds of other federal inmates convicted of nonviolent drug crimes under previous harsh sentencing rules.
That didn t matter to landlords once they ran a background check on Ortiz. “At that point, they find out where you came from, so you don’t have to be too smart to know why they don’t give the place to you,” said Ortiz, 60.
Swampscott resident Jim Popeo, an anti-poverty crusader, dead at 90
Big Blue sports fan had ‘a big heart’
Leigh Blander / Correspondent
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James “Jim” Popeo, a longtime Swampscott resident who dedicated his life to helping poor families across the state as a leader of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, died on Dec. 23. He was 90.
“He had a big heart,” said daughter Paula Popeo. “He would invite homeless families to our holiday dinners.” She remembers her father giving money to help a poor child get badly-needed dental care and delivering Christmas presents and food to a family who had nothing but a kitchen chair in their apartment.