In May 2022, the MacArthur Foundation and the Urban Institute launched the Just Home Project, a national program aimed at advancing community-driven efforts to break the links between housing instability and incarceration as an extension of the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge. Through the initiative, nine selected communities— Allegheny County, Pennsylvania; Buncombe County, North Carolina; Charleston County, South Carolina; Milwaukee County, Wisconsin; Missoula County, Montana; Minnehaha County, South Dakota; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; the City and County of San Francisco, California; and Tulsa County, Oklahoma—are receiving grant funding from MacArthur and technical assistance and coordination from Urban to create a plan to address this crisis in their community. Each community is also eligible to receive impact-investment funding from MacArthur to implement their plan and acquire or develop housing for populations that are not being served by current housing resources.
Urban’s technical assistance and coordination is supported by a cross-center team that includes the Research to Action Lab, the Justice Policy Center, and the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center. Their work is guided by a steering committee composed of leaders with expertise in affordable housing, the criminal legal system, community engagement, and racial equity, as well as people who have directly experienced housing instability or jail incarceration.
Early project successes
In Minnehaha County, SD, the project team used impact-investment funding to support the construction of a 51-unit expansion to the Glory House campus, which will include permanent housing with access to services, monitoring, and community on-campus support for people at risk of homelessness with a history of jail incarceration. The new Glory House extension was completed in August 2024. Funding was also used for acquisition of a 10- unit building close to the St. Francis House to provide progressive housing to people exiting the shelter.
In San Francisco, CA, the project team identified a property located in Bayview Hunters Point (BVHP), a historically marginalized neighborhood, that they will renovate to create a 20-unit building for transitional-aged youth (TAY) with frequent contact with the jail and health systems, who are unstably housed. The building will offer supportive housing services, including health and wellness, education, workforce training, financial literacy, food security, transportation and personalized support informed by people who have firsthand experience navigating the transitional journey from jail incarceration to housing. The City is partnering with 3rd Street Youth Center & Clinic, San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund and the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD) and the MacArthur Foundation as implementation partners for this project.
Understanding the problem
The barriers to housing faced by people with criminal justice involvement are well documented. People detained or incarcerated, even for short periods, may experience job loss or other financial harms that threaten their existing housing. Limited access to housing vouchers, housing eligibility requirements, discriminatory screening practices, and high housing costs can all complicate efforts to find stable housing.
Securing affordable, stable housing is already difficult for households of color, which face historical discrimination from federal policies, predatory practices in lending and renting, and fewer protections from enforcement of fair-housing laws. These pressures are particularly acute for people of color who have had previous contact with the criminal justice system. Statistics show that people of color are overrepresented among jail and homeless populations.
Research has shown that severe housing instability, in the form of chronic homelessness, can increase a person’s risk of becoming involved with the justice system because many behaviors associated with homelessness—such as sleeping, sitting, and asking for money or resources in public spaces—have been criminalized. Nationally, researchers have found that someone in jail is between 7.5 and 11.3 times more likely to have been homeless than someone with no history of jail incarceration.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, some jails released people and blocked admittance to help curb in-jail infection spread. However, the number of people released outpaced the resources to keep them sheltered, which further perpetuated the homelessness-jail cycle.
Materials
Project Launch Press Release
This 2022 press release from the MacArthur Foundation announces the launch of the Just Home Project. It describes how the project goals, partners, and funding structure will contribute to improved housing outcomes for people affected by the criminal justice system.
How Can Counties Create Housing Stability for Justice-Involved People?
This blog post explains why understanding past harms is an important first step to expanding housing opportunities for people formerly involved with the justice system, as well as the role that counties can play in supporting programs and policies that can improve housing for those affected.
Funding Housing Solutions to Reduce Jail Incarceration
This report presents four approaches to housing programs and policies that show promise for reducing jail incarceration and addressing structural barriers, as well as funding options for such approaches.
Policing Doesn’t End Homelessness. Supportive Housing Does.
This feature uses data from a supportive housing program in Denver to show how supportive housing led to better outcomes for people experiencing homelessness and jail incarceration.
Project staff members
Kelly Walsh
Katie Fallon
Jesse Jannetta
Bill Pitkin
Maureen Sarver
Kiersten Vaughan
Emma Fernandez
Samantha Atherton
Jackson Overton-Clark
This page will be updated as new reports and products are made public. Last updated on October 17, 2024.