Faces of the Homeless: The Formerly Incarcerated

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When an inmate is released from prison, his or her debt to society is not always fully paid, and for many formerly incarcerated people, taking the next step is not easy. Finding a place to live, securing employment and picking up their lives where they left off can be enough to force some people into a life of homelessness. 

After serving 85% of a 52-month sentence for robbery, Allen Jones was released from prison and admitted to a halfway house. With a felony on his record, Jones was pressed to find adequate employment. Relations with his family grew tense, and within three months, Jones has nowhere to go but the streets. He became homeless.  

“It was in and out at the halfway house,” said Jones, who spent about one month in a transitional facility before living with family and, subsequently, on the streets. “I think former convicts are at a much higher risk for being homeless because it is hard to go back into society, especially when there is no real structure for you.” 

Although director of Community and Organizing at the National Coalition for the Homeless, Michael Stoops, estimates that a relatively low segment of the homeless population are ex-felons, he also admits that more needs to be done to address the needs of former inmates.  

The inmate population in 2002 was 2.1 million people, a 2.6% increase from 2001, according to the Associated Press. The Bureau of Justice also identified more than 6.1 million people either on parole or in America’s prison system in 2002. A major reason for the increase in incarceration, experts said, is mandatory sentencing, particularly in regard to nonviolent drug offenders.  

For the majority of former inmates, finding adequate alcohol and drug treatment can be critical. And for many of them, the window of opportunity that exists before relapse is tiny. Inmates are often paroled on the condition that they check into a rehab center upon release, but in some parts of the country, and particularly in rural areas, accessibility can often be a problem, and waiting lists are generally high.  

In Virginia, many restrictions exist for felons. For example, if you are a convicted felon:
-You can’t live in subsidized housing for at least five years after your release. If your family happens to be living there when you get out, you can’t live with them.
-You can’t receive food stamps for five years if your offense was drug-related.
-You can’t vote, at least not until you petition the governor.
-You are barred from working in a wide range of occupations, including some types of health care, banks, and schools.
-You can’t go hunting (even if your offense was nonviolent and did not involve firearms), an especially painful penalty in rural areas of Virginia. 

Another common problem for former inmates is the stigma that is often associated with serving time.  “People who served time are automatically looked at as outcasts,” Jones said. “I applied for about ten jobs at hotels and drugstores and I didn’t get one call back. No one wants to hire someone with a felony.” 

Inmates are often faced with a choice of either moving back to their home community, where they have some sort of support but also the environment that led them to jail in the first place, or moving to a new community, where they lack support. 

There are programs across the nation, such as the Re-Integration for Offenders (RIO) in Texas and the National HIRE Network, sponsored by the Legal Action Center, that actively work to increase the number and quality of jobs for the formerly incarcerated. Last year RIO placed 23,351 ex-inmates in jobs, according to Joan Goodwin, a RIO program specialist. Though both public and private firms work toward reintegrating offenders into society, many experts said there is an apparent need for further research on the correlation between homelessness and incarceration. 

“By releasing people from prison with no structure, are we just setting them up for failure, particularly when places like shelters don’t specialize in the therapy that these people might need,” asks Stoops. 

“There really has been little done on this issue of how incarceration can lead to homelessness. We need to find out what happens to these people when they are released from prison.” 


Issues |Incarceration|Jobs|Re-entry

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