The Role of Supportive Housing in Successful Reentry Outcomes for Disabled Prisoners

Jocelyn Fontaine
Urban Institute

This article discusses the impact of a permanent supportive housing reentry program, Returning Home—Ohio, designed and implemented by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction and a nonprofit housing advocacy agency. The program provided supportive housing to individuals who had behavioral health disabilities and who had histories of housing instability or were at risk for housing instability as they were released from 13 state prisons to five Ohio cities. Employing a quasi-experimental design with propensity score weights, the evaluation found that the supportive housing program was associated with recidivism reductions—as measured by rearrests and reincarcerations within 1 year of release. Additional analyses focused on the effects on rearrest outcomes of demographic characteristics and aspects of the supportive housing program received. Several demographic variables, including specific mental health disorders, were significantly associated with recidivism. This article discusses the implications of the findings, particularly for reentry and housing practitioners looking to implement similar programming.