The corrections department is changing its transitional housing program, reducing beds in group homes in favor of adding “scattered” housing, where released individuals will be placed in apartments.
The plan, termed “Theory of Change,” calls for cutting 90 congregate, supervised housing beds for formerly incarcerated people and providing those beds in apartments across Vermont. Congregate housing providers include Dismas of Vermont and Phoenix House.
Not everyone is happy about the change or even knew about it until recently.
“Quite frankly, it took us all by surprise,” Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Monday. He said it may have been brought up earlier in the session, but he didn’t recall hearing about it until about two weeks before the session ended.
“It’s my view that it should have been run by the legislative process,” Sears said. “It wasn’t. It was an administrative decision.”
He said he hopes the Joint Legislative Justice Oversight Committee will monitor the program’s progress this summer.
“Some of the programs they’re going to lose, they will never be able to replicate and have done a lot of good for offenders coming out,” Sears said.
Rep. Alice Emmons, D-Springfield, chair of the House Committee on Corrections and Institutions, also said Monday she wasn’t aware of the change until recently.
“I think it caught everyone by surprise,” she said. “At this point, I haven’t come to any conclusion if it’s the proper way to go or not.”
The new model, according to James Baker, interim corrections commissioner, is aimed, at least in part, at preventing former inmates from returning to prison on “technical violations,” such as testing positive for an illegal drug.
“When I started a year ago, we took a great deal of criticism for those returns on technical violations,” Baker told the Senate Judiciary Committee during a recent hearing.
“So based on that, I challenged us early on in this when I didn’t even fully understand the housing issue. I challenged us to take a look at new ways of approaching housing,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is answer the challenge that was given to us.”
As a result, the Department of Corrections looked at different housing models designed to improve outcomes, avoid reincarceration and build connections in the community. Those models included working with landlords through housing organizations to provide apartments with supports around Vermont.
“We’re not just dropping people off at an apartment,” Baker said. The department sent out requests for proposals, seeking providers to participate in the scattered-site housing plan.
“The RFP is pretty clear that the folks that have bid for, and we have awarded contracts to, have to put wraparound services around those individuals,” Baker said.
Baker could not be reached Monday for comment.
Rachel Feldman, a corrections department spokesperson, said Monday the shift will allow parts of the state lacking re-entry services to have them.
“Orange and Lamoille counties will now have service where those counties did not have re-entry services before,” she said.
Baker, speaking at the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting, said the change is in line with recommendations from the Council of State Governments as part of Vermont’s Justice Reinvestment II.
According to research from the council, when someone who is out of prison on furlough is sent back behind bars in Vermont, the reason is often not a new crime or criminal actions.
Instead, in tracking furlough violations in 2019, the council found that 77% of people readmitted to prison committed technical violations, such as using drugs and alcohol, violating curfew, loss of housing, or loss of employment.
Baker said many of the congregate housing facilities operate as a “sober house” and dismiss people from the program who are found to have used drugs or alcohol, and as a result a released offender is out of housing and sent back to jail.
Emily Higgins, the corrections department housing administrator, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that providers of the scattered housing sites will be “checking in” on the recently released offenders and services will continue to be provided.
“All of them have staff who will be providing one-on-one support to everybody who is housed,” Higgins said, “and making sure they’re doing the service coordination needed for whatever their needs are in terms of mental health, substance use, job readiness.”
The corrections department stated on its website that its transitional housing program supported 523 released offenders between July 1, 2019, and June 30, 2020.
According to the corrections department, in fiscal year 2021, it provided for 146 congregate beds and 106 apartments. In 2022, according to the department, it will provide 56 congregate beds and 199 apartment beds.
Also, the department stated the cost for congregate housing ranges from $18,000 to $30,000 per bed on the low end and up to $50,000 to $80,000 on the high end, based primarily on staffing level.
The cost for an apartment with supports, the department stated, ranges from $16,000 to $40,000, with the average around $25,000 per bed.
“Vermont DOC moved away from funding congregate housing not because of the cost,” the department stated, “but due to the poor outcomes in terms of transitions to permanent housing, and the limitations on how and where those re-entering their community could be served.”
Sen. Jeanette White, D-Windham, a Senate Judiciary Committee member, questioned that with vacancy rates for apartments so low in Vermont, she wondered whether any were even available.
“There are no apartments, so my question is where will these people go?” White asked during the hearing.
Baker responded that apartments were already being found. He added there is not a direct connection between the tenant and the landlord.
“For example, in Burlington, Burlington Housing Authority is going to be the go-between,” Baker said. “They’re securing housing.”
Jim Curran, executive director of Dismas of Vermont, said his organization will be affected by the change. “DOC is in the midst of its Theory of Change,” he said Monday. “We’re really just hoping we can figure out a way to operate within that theory.”
He said while there are no signed contracts yet, the corrections department’s commitment is for 10 fewer beds than previously with Dismas of Vermont, going from 30 to 20. The organization’s financial commitment from the state department is $140,000 less than the last contract that totaled $501,000, he added.
“Again, none of these contracts are finalized yet,” Curran said.
