Reducing Offender Recidivism and Reconnecting Opportunity Youth

Reducing Offender Recidivism and Reconnecting Opportunity Youth

Highlights

• Returning Home–Ohio — a program offering permanent housing with supportive services to returning prisoners with certain medical needs and who are at risk of homelessness — has shown success in reducing rearrests and returns to prison.
• In Vermont, the Burlington Housing Authority partners with the state’s Department of Corrections to help former prisoners find housing through the Offender Re-Entry Housing Program. More than 600 former prisoners have participated in the program.
• The Aspen Forum for Community Solutions’ Opportunity Youth Incentive Fund supports initiatives throughout the country aimed at improving outcomes for opportunity youth. In Denver, the fund has provided resources for collaborative efforts to house former foster youth.

Denver’s Chamber of Commerce, the backbone organization leading efforts to reconnect opportunity youth in Denver, helps prepare young people for employment and educational attainment. Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce-Denver Opportunity Youth Investment Initiative

Access to stable housing, supportive services, and opportunities for education and employment can help promote social inclusion for people who have committed crimes or are at risk of engaging in criminal behavior. Programs that connect former offenders with housing and supportive services to facilitate their successful reentry into society have been shown to reduce recidivism among target populations.1 These programs can reduce the high rates of homelessness among former inmates and provide the stability that they need to gain employment and avoid returning to prison (see “Housing, Inclusion, and Public Safety”). For the nation’s “opportunity youth” — the estimated 5.5 million 16- to 24-yearolds who are neither employed nor in school and are thus more susceptible to criminal behavior — access to housing, education, and employment offers the possibility to reconnect to their communities’ social and economic fabrics.2 In recent years, a number of programs have emerged that unite multiple sectors for collective impact, including departments of corrections, public housing agencies, philanthropies, nonprofits, social service providers, and workforce programs. The most effective of these initiatives not only reintegrate these groups into society but also save money that would otherwise be spent on incarceration, homeless shelters, emergency services, and other social supports.

Returning Home–Ohio (RHO), administered by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) and the Corporation for Supportive Housing, and the Burlington Housing Authority’s Offender Re-Entry Housing Program are two such programs working to find stable housing for former offenders. A third program, the Aspen Forum for Community Solutions’ Opportunity Youth Incentive Fund, is a nationwide initiative that supports and invests in organizations to create educational and employment pathways for opportunity youth, such as efforts in Denver, Colorado, to provide housing and wraparound services for former foster youth.

Returning Home–Ohio: Permanent Housing With Supportive Services

Ohio’s prison population currently stands at nearly 51,000 and is expected to rise through 2023, in part because of the number of years prisoners remain incarcerated.3 This population rise is straining the state’s budget: in 2014, Ohio taxpayers spent $1.7 billion to run the state’s prison system. The prison system, which has a maximum capacity of 38,600 inmates, is also burdened by the rising population.4 To combat recidivism and homelessness among the recently incarcerated, ODRC and the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) launched RHO in 2007 as a pilot program in 13 prisons across the state. The program targets prisoners slated to be released (or who have been out of a facility for fewer than 120 days) who were homeless before incarceration or are at risk of homelessness after their release. To be eligible for RHO, offenders must also be HIV positive or have a severe and permanent mental illness. Participants receive permanent housing as well as supportive services such as mental health treatment, medication, and substance abuse counseling. Nine providers in five cities participated in the pilot, which cost about $5 million in rental subsidies, program evaluation, and administration.

A 2012 evaluation by the Urban Institute compared the RHO participants with a comparison group of individuals exiting prison at the same time and who were eligible for RHO services but did not receive them. The evaluation showed that RHO participants were 40 percent less likely to be rearrested and 61 percent less likely to return to prison within a year of release than were members of the comparison group. This result is especially notable considering that RHO participants were more likely than those in the comparison group to reoffend — they were more likely to have an alcohol or drug abuse disability, and their security level in prison was higher.5

An evaluation by the Urban Institute showed that Returning Home–Ohio, which has served more than 500 people since its inception in 2007, reduced recidivism by 40 percent. Corporation for Supportive Housing

Current Program

In 2013, the state of Ohio expanded RHO by 40 percent, and today the program serves 206 people in 8 counties; it has served 520 people since 2007.6 CSH contracts with nonprofit agencies that provide housing as well as supportive services. Although most of these organizations provide both housing (through private landlords) and services, two providers partner with organizations that deliver supportive services and case management. Each organization decides whom to accept within RHO’s general eligibility criteria, with some open to accepting people convicted of a sex offense and those convicted of arson.7 Katie Kitchin, director of CSH in Ohio, explains that the organizations, selected through a competitive request for proposals, are chosen in part based on the additional resources that they can bring to RHO. “Reentry, just like homelessness, is a multifactor challenge,” she says. “Helping returning citizens think about their place in the community is more than providing a place to live. It’s making sure [that] there’s community integration, employment, substance abuse services,” and support for former inmates’ mental health needs.8

Most referrals to RHO come from prison staff, who identify offenders who both lack housing following their release and fit RHO’s mental health and disability criteria. Not all prisoners referred to RHO decide to accept; about 15 percent are not admitted because they do not complete the application process or do not want to join the program after learning about it. Some offenders who need higher levels of medical services than RHO can provide go to other facilities, such as nursing homes. About 15 percent of applicants are rejected because they are ineligible — for example, they do not have a severe and persistent mental illness. Providers also can reject referrals if, after interviewing them and reviewing their scores on the Ohio Risk Assessment System (a statewide tool that assesses a former offender’s risk to others), they believe that person is not a good fit for their program.9

Once accepted, participants are set up in an apartment with their own lease, and assisted with furniture and household items. An individualized service plan, completed with the participants, outlines their goals, objectives, and the supportive services that they can receive, such as mental health counseling, addiction treatment, and basic life-skills training. Although participants are not required to use these services, RHO staff strongly encourage them to do so. Providers also coordinate with community-based treatment centers and other community resources to wrap services around the individual. The housing and services providers conduct assessments 9 to 12 months after participants have joined the program to see whether participants are ready to move to more independent housing or need to stay in RHO. The assessments take place every three months thereafter. These assessments are meant to open the door to talking about a life beyond Returning Home, for the case manager and the tenant, to say “this isn’t the end, maybe there’s more I can do,” says Terri Power, CSH senior program manager.

Some people depart because they wish to live independently, and move in with family or a significant other or because they have secured employment that makes it possible to afford their own apartment. Those who have an extensive criminal history and will not be able to get on any other subsidy or who need long-term supportive services are encouraged to apply for the Home for Good rental subsidy, earmarked for people at risk of homelessness because of prior convictions. The program, administered by the Ohio Housing Finance Agency, provides a subsidy to ensure that recipients pay no more than 30 percent of their income toward housing. Others leave RHO because their outcomes have been less successful; they may need a greater level of medical care in a nursing facility, have reoffended, or have violated the terms of their lease.10

The Northern Lights program, a collaboration among the Burlington Housing Authority, the Howard Center, and other local agencies, provides transitional housing and supportive services to women who were recently incarcerated. Burlington Housing Authority

CSH, which manages the program, works consistently to improve it, collecting data to determine how people are referred to the program and the reason why they leave. According to Kitchin, the organization trains RHO’s housing and service providers in harm reduction; Housing First practices; and Critical Time Intervention, an evidence-based model that aims to prevent homelessness among the severely mentally ill who exit institutions, including prisons. CSH has also contracted with the University of Cincinnati to train housing and service providers in criminogenic qualities and how best to use case management and cognitive behavioral interventions to reduce recidivism.11

Housing Provider Challenges

In addition to the challenges that participants face, housing providers have had to overcome their own challenges to implement the program. Case managers for New Housing Ohio, a housing and services provider that serves RHO participants in Ohio’s mostly rural Butler County, must drive long distances to reach clients, which consumes considerable time and resources. The rural environment also presents transportation challenges for participants seeking employment and access to social services. Tosha Crone, a supportive services manager at New Housing Ohio, says that the area’s lack of recreation centers or other meeting points to provide programming makes offering alternatives to engaging in criminal behavior difficult. As a result, says Crone, it is important for providers to introduce readily accessible and cost-effective activities, such as playing basketball and walking to get an ice cream cone.12

Other housing providers point to the best practices that they have identified that resulted from early mistakes in rolling out the program. Lavada Smith, tenant services specialist at Miami Valley Housing Opportunities (MVHO), a nonprofit housing organization in Dayton, highlights the importance of employing a scattered-site approach for housing RHO participants. Smith says that when MVHO began providing beds for RHO in 2011, the organization thought that housing participants in a single building would make it easier to conduct check-ins and assess their progress. However, MVHO learned that doing so essentially kept them “institutionalized,” replicating the same community as they had in prison. Housing the 25 RHO participants that MVHO supports today in different buildings and neighborhoods across Dayton gives participants a better chance to “start fresh and start anew,” says Smith.13

The scattered-site approach is one reason Kitchin cites for community support for the RHO reentry model — single buildings filled with ex-offenders, she says, might be perceived as a greater risk to a community. Moreover, because RHO’s supportive reentry model provides mentally ill participants at risk of homelessness with housing and mental health services, they are not living on the streets, which makes communities healthier and safer. In fact, thanks in part to the program’s success, Kitchin says, the state’s Department of Youth Services is considering a similar project targeted to offenders exiting juvenile facilities, which in Ohio includes anyone under age 21.14

The housing providers echo Kitchin’s observation that, overall, communities do not object to former offenders being housed among them, although Smith recalls a handful of cases in which people complained about MVHO settling sex offenders in their midst. In those instances, she said, she reminds people that being released from prison means that these former offenders have been given a second chance, and it is the community’s responsibility to give them a second chance, too. MVHO’s strong reputation in the community — the organization has a 25-year history of providing housing for people who are disabled, mentally ill, or HIV positive and who would otherwise be homeless — helps to further allay neighbors’ concerns.15

The housing and services providers also emphasize the importance of the supportive services built into the RHO model. Crone points out that because many participants have been without the services they need for a long time, they may not realize how badly they need medication until they are provided access to it. In addition, the fact that RHO provides supportive services can help landlords feel more confident in leasing apartments to the former offenders, says Crone.

Public Impacts and Economic Costs

As the Urban Institute’s evaluation demonstrated, the pilot program realized its goal by effectively reducing recidivism rates for participants. Although the program has not been formally evaluated since the pilot ended, from July 1, 2012, through March 31, 2016, recidivism to state prison among RHO participants was just 8 percent. During the same period, approximately 79 percent of participants maintained their housing.

However, the Urban Institute’s evaluation of the pilot shows that RHO has not saved the state money. RHO participants, no matter what services they received, cost more than people who were not part of the program. This evaluation, however, only examined participants who had been out of the program for a year, which means that it did not capture the long-term costs incurred by people who may have returned to prison for longer sentences later on. As the Urban Institute observed, “program investments are by definition more costly than business as usual, particularly in the short term.” Moreover, the evaluation did not include the social costs of recidivism: the pain inflicted on crime victims and the overall burden such events place on public safety.16

Kitchin says that a financial incentive is not the only reason a state might be motivated to run such a program. As the pilot demonstrated, RHO allows people leaving prison to reintegrate into the community with the support that they need to avoid reoffending, successfully reach their goals, and rejoin society.17

Oxford House is a transitional housing facility for women in Burlington, Vermont. Burlington Housing Authority

The Burlington Housing Authority Houses Former Offenders

In 2007, Vermont was running out of space to house prisoners and had a choice: the state could either spend $82 million to lease space in out-of-state prisons or spend an estimated $200 million to build a new state prison. Instead, state lawmakers, guided by research from the Council of State Governments Justice Center on how to reduce recidivism, adopted a different strategy, allocating $6.3 million to reduce the number of inmates through prison-based treatment for substance abuse, transitional housing, and electronic monitoring.18 The strategy was successful: Vermont’s prison population has fallen by 7 percent to 2,050, saving the state a projected $54 million that it otherwise would have spent on incarcerating these offenders from 2009 to 2019.19

In 2004, the Burlington Housing Authority (BHA) began working with the state’s Department of Corrections to develop reentry programs for former prisoners. Federal law prohibits two groups from living in public housing: those on the lifetime sex offender list, and those convicted of making methamphetamines on public housing property. Other than these restrictions, each housing agency is permitted to make its own decisions about whom to permit in public housing, and BHA is one of a number of public housing agencies that allow former felons to receive housing choice vouchers. During its first year, the program placed 49 formerly incarcerated people in housing, more than half of whom received a housing subsidy.20

The Offender Re-Entry Housing Program is run by BHA, which coordinates with the state’s Department of Corrections, social services organizations, and private landlords. Most referrals come from the Department of Corrections and from probation and parole officers, but some come from service providers in the prison, service providers in the community, or even from the applicants themselves.21 The program currently employs two reentry specialists who work separately with men and women.22

Those referred to the program meet with the reentry specialists before their release to share their long-term goals; their needs, such as counseling for substance abuse; and any barriers to housing such as evictions or debts owed to previous landlords.23 The program accepts between 60 to 80 percent of referrals.24 Those who are rejected are frequently told “no for now” and given instructions on what to do to apply successfully in the future, such as clearing previous debts to landlords or cleaning up a messy credit history, says Rachel Schneider, the reentry specialist who works with female prisoners. Once they have completed these tasks, most of these would-be applicants do reapply. She says that the program “flat-out rejects” applicants who have too many barriers to housing or whose needs are too great for the program to serve, such as those with severe mental health difficulties; these individuals are referred to a more appropriate agency.

Finding Housing for Former Offenders

Securing housing often begins while the participant is still incarcerated, up to a year before release. While in prison, participants may take a “ready to rent” course run by BHA, although it is not required. Schneider and Mike Cartier, the other reentry specialist, also work with participants to clear up former debts or evictions, secure recommendation letters from the supervisors of their jobs in prison, and work on repairing their credit. These steps can ultimately “open up more housing options” when the person is released, says Schneider.

The housing specialists then work to find a suitable apartment. Some participants are eligible to live in one of the more than 600 rental apartment properties BHA manages or receive a rent subsidy. Others, however, particularly men who are on the lifetime sex offender registry, must rent a privately owned, market-rate apartment.25 Finding housing for sex offenders can be especially challenging because of the restrictions on where they can live as well as community concerns. Research suggests, however, that such restrictions can be counterproductive. Studies show that housing restrictions are unlikely to prevent recidivism and can isolate sex offenders, making it more difficult to access treatment services or even meet the conditions of their parole, which in turn reduces their chances of successful reentry and rehabilitation.26

Bridging the Gap participants tour the Auraria Campus, which is home to the Community College of Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver, and University of Colorado Denver, to gain an understanding of what college life would be like and learn how to navigate the campus. Mile High United Way

Because the program is more than a decade old, say Cartier and Schneider, it has a stable of landlords familiar with the program and its clients, which makes placing the former offenders easier. Moreover, the former offenders sign releases that allow the reentry specialists to discuss their convictions with potential landlords, which can ultimately put the landlords at ease. Schneider adds that landlords’ concerns are also allayed by transitional housing money supplied by the Department of Corrections and managed by BHA that can be used by the tenants as a deposit and as the first month’s rent. The program also offers a landlord guarantee that acts as a second security deposit. At the lease’s end, a landlord can claim up to $2,000 from this fund for repairs or other tenant-generated costs.27

The program provides retention services for up to a year, although Schneider often works for longer periods with the women on her caseload. Overall, more than 600 former offenders have participated in the Offender Re-Entry Housing Program. Of the 40 people housed during 2014 and 2015, 8 lost their housing and returned to jail — a recidivism rate of 20 percent — and a number of participants have maintained their housing for more than 3 years. But providing participants with a home does more than reduce recidivism. Having a home allows participants to secure employment and often helps them cope with sobriety and mental health issues, says Schneider. In fact, many of the participants have never before had a lease in their own name. “Having a place that they can call their own … really helps them in following through on everything else,” says Cartier.

The Need for Supportive Services

Unlike Returning Home–Ohio, BHA’s program does not include supportive services. Cartier points to the “gray area” that many of the men he works with fall into. Although many have problems with alcohol or need mental health services, he says, they fail to qualify for additional supportive services. Yet, these problems are large enough to interfere with participants’ capacity to sustain their housing. With additional services, Cartier explains, program participants would be better positioned to do so.28

Schneider and Cartier both note that transitional housing programs may yield better long-term results for some participants than setting up a former offender with independent housing directly from prison.29 “It’s a lot to go from prison to the community, to doing everyday life on your own, when you’ve been around a lot of people telling you what you need to do every single hour of the day,” says Schneider. This is particularly true, she says, of women with children exiting residential programs, who have benefited from extra parenting support and guidance. Among the successful transitional housing programs in the state, they point to facilities run by nonprofits and ones owned and managed by BHA, such as the Northern Lights program, which collaborates with service providers to offer up to a year of housing and wraparound services to women leaving jail who are eligible for housing choice vouchers.

A participant in the Bridging the Gap program makes a deposit into her Individual Development Account, a matched savings account that participants can draw on to pay for housing or educational costs. Mile High United Way

Reconnecting Opportunity Youth: The Aspen Forum for Community Solutions

The Aspen Institute, an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, DC, created the Aspen Forum for Community Solutions and Opportunity Youth Incentive Fund in 2012 to support collaborative efforts and collective impact strategies that address community challenges and improve outcomes for opportunity youth.30 Monique Miles, director of the Opportunity Youth Incentive Fund and deputy director of the Aspen Forum for Community Solutions at the Aspen Institute, says that this work has been ongoing for decades at the grassroots level. In recent years, however, the Obama administration’s focus on this population, along with new research that quantifies opportunity youth’s cost burden and their potential contribution to society, has provided the “wind in the sails” needed to create the cross-sector, evidence-based strategies that reconnect opportunity youth with employment and educational opportunities, says Miles.31 Among the initiatives that the fund supports are workforce programs that provide training for local jobs in growing industries and General Educational Development programs designed to assist youth who have dropped out of school.

To support this work with opportunity youth, the fund provided $13 million in 21 grants to collaborative groups nationwide, including K–12 educators, community colleges, and nonprofits.32 Miles says that the ways they go about setting priorities, identifying problems, and designing solutions differ from community to community based on available resources, existing infrastructure, and local needs. Despite these differences, all of the collaboratives focus on opportunity youth and emphasize collective impact approaches.33

Housing Former Foster Youth in Denver

In 2012, Rose Community Foundation, a philanthropy based in Denver, received planning funding from the Aspen Institute’s Opportunity Youth Incentive Fund to launch a collaborative, collective-impact approach to improve outcomes for opportunity youth in the city. According to Rose Community Foundation, Denver’s population of opportunity youth is approximately 9,850, or 13.4 percent of the city’s 16 to 24-year-olds. Demographically, they resemble opportunity youth across the country: they are disproportionately black and Latino, nearly half (45.5%) have been homeless at some point, nearly a third (31.8%) have a criminal record, and almost a quarter (22.7%) are presently in foster care.34 Together, Denver’s opportunity youth cost taxpayers approximately $500 million each year in social services, welfare, spending on health care and crime, and lost wages and diminished taxes.35 Being disconnected from employment and education makes it difficult for these youth to sustain themselves and engage in meaningful careers.

The Denver collaborative is in its third year of receiving funds from the Aspen Institute, and the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce has taken over from the Rose Community Foundation as the backbone organization for the city’s efforts.36 Although this collaborative focuses specifically on workforce preparation and educational attainment, housing instability can affect these efforts as well. Lorena Zimmer, who works with opportunity youth as the talent pipeline director at the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, recalls a young woman who did not show up to an interview because her housing had changed abruptly, and she did not have access to the professional clothes she needed. Few of us are equipped to handle such stresses, says Zimmer, who notes that such instability can make simply reporting to work difficult.37

Among the collaborative’ s housing-specific efforts is the Mile High United Way’s Bridging the Gap program, which serves people older than 18 and under 22 who were in the child welfare system after their 16th birthday and who are either homeless or at imminent risk of homelessness.38 Bridging the Gap provides these young people a Family Unification Program voucher that funds 18 months of housing assistance (see “Housing, Inclusion, and Public Safety”).

Minna Castillo Cohen, senior director of community impact and investments for Mile High United Way, explains that the organization began administering the vouchers in 2005 but soon realized that participants needed more than financial support to maintain their housing. Bridging the Gap responded by implementing mentorship as a cornerstone of its program. Today, independent living coaches work with participants — the program administers some 142 vouchers — to create individual plans for wellness, social connections, educational and employment goals, and crisis management and help them develop their own goals. For these youth in particular, who have been part of systems and institutions that have dictated their actions for most of their lives, Castillo Cohen says that “[i]t’s really important [that they] take the wheel” to independently identify the goals that they wish to pursue.39 Among the most effective services that the program partners with is the Nurse-Family Partnership, an evidence-based model in which nurses make home visits to women pregnant with their first child to improve wellness of the mother and her baby. According to Castillo Cohen, the Nurse-Family Partnership has been so successful that the program is considering developing a mental health services program following a similar model, in which therapists visit young people at home, at the program office, or in the community.40

Participants come to Bridging the Gap through referrals from parole officers, caseworkers, homeless shelters, and self-referrals. They are assessed by staff and matched with a coach who works with them to develop a plan and design a “stepping-up tool” that outlines a path toward self-sufficiency. This matrix guides both participants and their coaches through the program. Bridging the Gap staffers check in with participants monthly and conduct surveys at 6, 12, and 18 months to assess how prepared they are to leave the program and whether they perceive themselves as being ready to leave. Such formal data collection complements anecdotal feedback that the staff gather from events such as holiday parties and other community get-togethers.41

Castillo Cohen stresses the importance of allowing young people to assume responsibility for some of the work involved in applying to Bridging the Gap and finding an apartment. When a parole officer or caseworker handles all of the research, applications, and paperwork, participants are sometimes less successful “because they haven’t had an opportunity to make decisions about where they would like to live or understand how to apply for an apartment — decisions that require practice and assist them in the skills they need to be independent,” she says. And the program demands independence: the vouchers do not permit recipients to live with roommates, although significant others are allowed. This requirement can be problematic because these young people often are not used to living by themselves, and they sometimes feel scared or lonely on their own, she says. This natural desire for connection sometimes leads to trouble with landlords when young people invite friends to stay over in ways that violate their lease agreement. Castillo Cohen also points to the value of social connections — whether through a program, a service, or some other kind of civic engagement — and the role that they play in achieving successful outcomes for participants. She notes that those with the “highest levels of engagement with their independent living coach do better.”

Conclusion

Returning Home–Ohio, Burlington’s Offender Re-Entry Housing Program, and Denver’s Bridging the Gap program all follow Housing First principles. The programs provide stable housing as a foundation for promoting social inclusion and improving economic outcomes for former offenders and opportunity youth. “We see a dramatic change to young people once they’re housed,” says Denver’s Castillo Cohen. In addition, those who work with former offenders and opportunity youth consistently point out the importance of combining housing with supportive services, which often empower participants to maintain their housing. As studies such as the Urban Institute’s evaluation of RHO demonstrate, these programs model the utility and effectiveness of collective impact. However, additional longitudinal research is needed to further assess the programs’ efficacy and cost effectiveness over the long term — for example the degree to which RHO mitigates long prison sentences, which are very costly. Moreover, current research has not captured the intangible benefits these programs offer, such as enhanced quality of life for participants and their communities.

What is clear, however, is that providing housing along with supportive services and case management allows organizations from different sectors and with complementary expertise to focus their efforts and resources on improving outcomes for a single group. However, that does not make such work easy, says Miles. Programs that cross multiple sectors and that (by necessity) involve many people require extensive training and education. The New York City Housing Authority’s new family reunification program, for example, entails training many hundreds of property managers (see “New York City Housing Authority’s Family Reentry Pilot Program”). Yet this type of collective work is vital, Miles says, particularly for communities that have experienced the most success in “moving the needle” toward better outcomes for opportunity youth.

Related Information:

New York City Housing Authority’s Family Reentry Pilot Program

1. Justice Policy Institute. 2007. “Housing and Public Safety.”
2. Kristen Lewis and Sarah Burd-Sharps. 2015. “Zeroing In on Place and Race: Youth Disconnection in America’s Cities,” Measure of America of the Social Science Research Council, 7.
3. Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. 2016. “Population Count Sheets”; Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. 2014. “Prison Population Projections, 2015-2023 ”; David J. Diroll. 2011. “Prison Crowding: The Long View, with Suggestions,” Ohio Criminal Sentencing Commission, 1.
4. American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio and Ohio Justice & Policy Center. 2016. “Looking Forward: A Comprehensive Plan for Criminal Justice Reform in Ohio,” 1.
5. Jocelyn Fontaine, Douglas Gilchrist-Scott, John Roman, Samuel Taxy, and Caterina Roman. 2012. “Supportive Housing for Returning Prisoners,” vi.
6. Corporation for Supportive Housing. 2014. “Great Results from Returning Home Ohio published in Cityscape by HUD”; Interview with Katie Kitchin, 29 April 2016.
7. Interview with Tosha Crone, 10 May 2016.
8. Interview with Katie Kitchin.
9. Interview with Lavada Smith, 10 May 2016.
10. Ibid.
11. Interview with Katie Kitchin.
12. Email correspondence with Tasha Crone, 29 June 2016.
13. Interview with Lavada Smith.
14. Interview with Katie Kitchin.
15. Interview with Lavada Smith.
16. Fontaine et al., 34–6.
17. Interview with Katie Kitchin.
18. Council of State Governments Justice Center. “Vermont” (csgjusticecenter.org/jr/vt/). Accessed 3 August 2016.
19. Council of State Governments Justice Center. “Justice Reinvestment State Brief: Vermont”; Council of State Governments Justice Center. “Vermont.”
20. Burlington Housing Authority. 2014. “Burlington Housing Authority Offender Re-entry Housing Program Policy and Procedure Manual”; Interview with Rachel Schneider, 26 April 2016.
21. Ibid.
22. Interview with Rachel Schneider; Interview with Mike Cartier, 28 April 2016.
23. Interview with Rachel Schneider.
24. Interview with Rachel Schneider; Interview with Mike Cartier.
25. Interview with Mike Cartier.
26. Center for Sex Offender Management. 2007. “Managing the Challenges of Sex Offender Rentry,” 10; Council of State Governments Justice Center. 2016. “Reentry Housing Options for Sex Offenders;” Kelly M. Socia. 2011. “The policy implications of residence restrictions on sex offender housing in Upstate NY,” Criminology & Public Policy 10:2, 351–89; J.C. Barnes. 2011. “Place a moratorium on the passage of sexoffender residence restriction laws,” Criminology & Public Policy 10:2, 401–9
27. Interview with Rachel Schneider; Interview with Mike Cartier.
28. Interview with Mike Cartier.
29. Interview with Rachel Schneider; Interview with Mike Cartier.
30. Denver Opportunity Youth Investment DOYII. 2015. “Year 1 Evaluation Report,” 3.
31. Interview with Monique Miles, 3 May 2016.
32. Melody Barnes. 2014. “Blog: Pathways to Aspen—Melody Barnes and the AFCS Perspective,” October 22 Blog, Aspen Institute Forum  for Community Solutions;  Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions. “Partners” (www.aspencommunitysolutions.org/the-fund/partners/). Accessed 3 August 2016.
33. Interview with Monique Miles.
34. Rose Community Foundation. 2014. “On-Ramps to Opportunity: Connecting Youth to Education, Work and Success,” 2.
35. Denver Opportunity Youth Investment DOYII.
36. Interview with Lorena Zimmer,  28 April 2016.
37. Ibid.
38. Interview with Minna Castillo Cohen, 6 May 2016.
39. Ibid.
40. Interview with Minna Castillo Cohen.
41. Ibid.