Incarceration and homelessness: An uphill battle

After 30 years, eight months and 14 days in prison, New Jersey native Ronald Pierce was excited to leave his jail cell behind and move in with his fiancé. Unfortunately, things did not go as planned.

“After two months being there, even though she owned the house…they told her that because I had a felony conviction I could not live there,” Pierce said. “If I didn’t leave, and I was on parole so I couldn't leave, they threatened to take her house from her.”

While in prison, Pierce was part of the New Jersey Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prisons program (NJ-STEP) through Rutgers University. Through his connection with the university, Pierce was able to get help from Rutgers Law School to delay any action until he was able to find stable housing. Through these resources, he was able to find a permanent residence.

“I had all of this support, which is so important when you're coming home, to have all of these different support networks,” Pierce said.

Others are not so lucky.

Across the country, a majority of those experiencing homelessness attribute their housing struggles to previous incarceration. A 2018 report from the Prison Policy Initiative found that in the United States, formerly incarcerated people are 10 times more likely to be homeless than other populations.

The 2021 DC Point-In-Time Count, organized by The Community Partnership For the Prevention of Homelessness, found that on any given night, the city has around 5,111 homeless people. Of the adults included in the count, 43.8% have resided in some kind of institutional setting, including incarceration.

In the 2019 count, which recorded 6,521 people as homeless in Washington, about one third of those people connected incarceration to their housing troubles and homelessness.

Gina Daye-Williams, the director of reentry at Jubilee Housing in Washington, said housing for returning citizens is, “a growing need and it just continues and gets larger, and of course we have mass incarceration…but what happens when they come home?”

She answers her own question. “They end up homeless,” she said. Especially, she adds, when they lack a solid support system.

In any given year, Jubilee Housing in Washington typically receives over 400 referrals for formerly incarcerated individuals in need of housing. Founded in 1973, the organization works to provide “justice housing,” which is affordable housing with nearby services located in thriving neighborhoods.

Jubilee, however, only has space for about 45 people a year, despite hundreds being released from prison. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic when many people were released for safety concerns, reentry houses in Washington did not have the capacity to house everyone, leaving many to turn to shelters.

“I feel like there is no compassion for [homeless] people… the city should show a little more understanding or at least have a plan in place to support these people,” Darick Brown, the director of programs at Street Sense Media, said. “The shelter system that they have in D.C. is not the safest, is not the cleanest, and that's why a lot of people refuse to go into shelters. They feel safer on the street than the shelters.”

Street Sense is an outlet with a mission to end homelessness, raise awareness of homelessness in Washington and empower those in need.

Duane Foster, a Black man from Alexandria and previous vendor for Street Sense, is currently homeless and has lived all around Washington, panhandling everywhere from Southeast to Georgetown.

Seated on two stacked crates with a duffle bag filled with winter essentials by his side, Foster watches traffic pass from his usual spot in the CVS parking lot on Wisconsin Ave. in Northwest Washington. He describes the environment of many Washington homeless shelters.

“Man, it's a mob that hangs out all around the perimeter the entire day,” Foster said. “Pretty much they hang there when they open and close the shelter…they come outside, they sit down and they don’t get back up until the shelter opens back up. Now they out there drinking, getting high, doing whatever.”

For Foster, shelters are worse than sleeping outside, even as temperatures begin to drop. But for many incarcerated individuals, shelters are the only option. Between lost family bonds, barriers to securing a job with a prior conviction and mental health issues, which 40.6% of the homeless population in Washington report having, securing stable housing is difficult.

Shelters, however, can also lead to more jail time. A study conducted by the Vera Institute of Justice focused on reentry in New York City found that people who enter a homeless shelter upon release were seven times more likely to abscond from parole than those with stable housing.

While Daye-Williams acknowledges that there are multiple organizations around the Washington area working to solve this issue, there is just not enough room and waitlists continue to grow.

Apart from non-profit organizations that provide housing for returning citizens, Washington has two other government programs.

The Housing Choice Voucher Program is federally funded through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. This program provides financial assistance to low-income families, veterans and people with disabilities to help them access rental housing in the private market. A research brief by the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council found that in 2018 the District issued between 300 and 400 vouchers for single adults and about 12,000 for families. More than 40,000 families remain on the waiting list and no new families have been added since 2013, the Urban Institute reported.

Another option is public housing owned and managed by the D.C. Housing Authority, which has about 56 public housing properties with around 8,000 units. Currently there are more than 32,000 individuals on the waiting list, says the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council brief.

Overwhelmed with applicants, the Housing Authority is no longer adding new names to the waiting list.

To solve this issue, Daye-Williams says there needs to be a centralized agency to oversee all of reentry in Washington.

“What we recognize in the city is that even though we have lots of resources in D.C., as opposed to other states, there is not one agency that owns reentry,” she said. “It’s basically a diverse group of providers that are pulling together to provide these services, but it in essence will never meet the needs of those that really need the services.”

The success of these reentry programs is not only necessary from a social justice standpoint, but economically as well.

Jubilee Housing has seen a lot of success over the years and has an 11% reconviction rate as opposed to the 36% reconviction rate that is the status quo for the rest of the city, Daye-Williams said. Incarceration itself is very expensive, so it is more cost effective to fund programs that decrease recidivism than ignore the heart of the issue and wait for costs to add up due to reconviction.

The average annual cost of incarceration for federal inmates in 2017 was $36,229.25, or about $99.45 a day, a 2018 notice by the Prisons Bureau reported. A 2017 Pew Charitable Trusts brief found that the average annual cost of holding a person in jail at the local level was about $34,000.

To use Jubilee as an example, its program cost about $1.5 million, while the city pays about $4.9 million at a 30% reconviction rate within a three-year period. Therefore, Jubilee averts $3.4 million in cost. That, Daye-Williams says, is a win-win for the city and returning citizens.

Reentry programs are also often much more than just providing housing. These programs are often not permanent living situations but are meant to prepare returning citizens for a successful transition. To do this, they sometimes provide job training and classes on essential skills such as family reunification, anger management and communication skills.

One of the most essential classes for a successful transition is financial literacy, Daye-Williams said. Most returning citizens have relied on fast cash for most of their life and have never had a bank account or learned how to save and build credit.

When homeless, fast cash is a way to survive and make it through the day. From selling single cigarettes and drugs to panhandling for change, Foster has done it all. Fast cash, however, is often spent just as quickly as it is made.

To make sure the people going through the Jubilee reentry program have the best shot at success, they are instructed on how to start saving, build credit and even start a retirement fund.

Despite all of these resources, even the most successful alumni of the Jubilee program have a difficult time securing housing.

“They still have ongoing challenges of people looking down on them,” said Daye-Williams. “I had one young man, who graduated from our program, very successful, making pretty good income, things of that sort. So, when he applied for an apartment, they denied him… he went through six different applications before someone accepted his application to move in. The criminal history really knocks their chances.”

Because past incarceration heavily impacts both housing and job applications, a support system that can advocate for people with past convictions can make a significant difference.

Despite having secured housing, Pierce still struggled to find a job to sustain himself.

“Even though the rent was low, I was having a hard time finding work because I have a felony conviction,” Pierce said. Luckily, a mentor recommended him to a nonprofit that offers rent relief. With two months of rent taken care of and another mentor providing a job for him on the Rutgers University campus, Pierce was able to get back on his feet.

Thanks to the support of mentors, nonprofits and professors both in and outside of prison, Pierce was able to go on and become an Inaugural Democracy and Justice Fellow at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice. Pierce is best known for his instrumental role in the restoration of voting rights to 83,000 people on probation and parole in New Jersey.