The Department of Corrections and 15 community organizations have partnered to provide housing and services for people being released from Vermont prisons.
A new focus on reentry housing will place more emphasis on “scattered-site” housing, a total of 274 beds, according to the corrections department.
That’s a shift away from funding congregate sober-living sites, according to Derek Miodownik, community and restorative justice executive for the corrections department.
Both scattered-site and congregate housing offer intensive support to help former imprisoned people move back into community life, but there are differences in the equitable distribution of resources, he said.
“The shift to individualized apartments also allows us to redistribute resources more equitably, and promote individuals returning back to the actual communities where they may likely have some other natural supports still in place, but just didn’t necessarily have a residence they could live in,” he said.
The department’s plan, Theory of Change, called for the shift after the Council of State Governments reported that “nearly 80 percent of all prison admissions in Vermont were for violations of terms of furlough, probation, or parole supervision from 2017 to 2019.”
Now, the department is pursuing “an evolutionary process to most effectively help people return to, and stay stably housed in, their communities,” said James Baker, interim corrections commissioner, in a press release. By partnering with local and regional agencies, the department aims to provide services that will “optimize people’s dignity, stability, and personal choice,” he said.
The corrections department is investing $5,809,042 in the effort, according to Rachel Feldman, the department’s principal assistant and public information officer.
Funding varies according to probation, parole district, total population under supervision, and how big a segment of the total population formerly imprisoned people make up, Miodownik said.
“The combination of both the volume of service, specific program characteristics, and the cost for that organization to deliver those services become main determinants,” he said.
After receiving proposals from local organizations on how the program could work, the corrections department compiled a statewide portfolio based on those proposals.
One problem with congregate, sober living residences was that if people violated any policies of the residences, they had to leave — and that left them homeless, which violated the conditions of their furlough from prison.
Without an “acceptable residence,” those people went back to prison.
According to the Council of State Governments report, the majority of people going back to prison had committed only technical violations, such as a lack of housing, missed appointments and curfews, or failed drug tests.
The scattered housing approach is intended to avoid loss of housing, and to provide community supports to help people avoid the other technical violations.
Still, the Washington County Youth Service Bureau plans to maintain its congregate housing program, called Return House, for young men up to 26 years old.
“Services to youth and young adults are different and need to be provided a little bit differently,” said Kreig Pinkham, executive director of the Washington County Youth Service Bureau. “And so we don’t believe at the moment that moving to ‘scattered site,’ in accordance fully with the Theory of Change, is in the best interest of young adults who are also learning how to be adults in the community, regardless of their past incarceration.”
Because of the “changing dynamic of need in Vermont,” Pinkham said, Return House has partnered with the Department of Children and Families to conduct programs to help young people released from prison reacclimate to their communities. The department is reimbursing the corrections department for 70% of the cost, $356,777, with $152,905 going to Return House alone.
The Department of Children and Families is “really trying to look at placement options and opportunities within juvenile justice reform,” he said.
Miodownik noted the importance of using state resources to help foster personal relationships. These relationships will create a supportive foundation for people to successfully reintegrate into the community.
“Everybody needs a place to call their own to start the day. And to have that stabilizing housing security upon which other skills and self-sufficiency structures in our lives are then scaffolded, we saw that the more folks who came to those programs, the fewer were going back to prison,” Miodownik said.
