State policymakers across the country are following the lead of Texas and Missouri to address mounting homelessness in American cities. So far this year, Arizona and Kansas legislators have introduced bills that will get more people off the streets and into shelters and rehabilitative programming. They should also consider policies that can help prevent homelessness by targeting the pathway from prison to the streets. One promising approach uses performance-based funding to reward prisons for helping people secure stable housing placements pre-release, and rewarding probation and parole departments that assist them in maintaining that housing.
People exiting prison account for a sizable portion of the homeless population, which the Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates at nearly 600,000 people nationwide. Formerly incarcerated people are ten times as likely to be homeless compared with members of the general public. Roughly half of people in shelters have been to prison, with one in five having left within the last three years. It’s harder to estimate the proportion of the unsheltered homeless population that has been incarcerated, but most experts agree that it is even higher.
[It’s certainly one place to start. The larger issue, though, is likely how many of the homeless should be institutionalized — the mentally ill who cannot and/or will not care for themselves. We need to come up with a humane system to determine competency and a way to house those who would otherwise prey on others or fall prey to others through their own incapacity. — Ed]
Join the conversation as a VIP Member