“Ex-prisoners trying to re-enter society all too often end up living, illegally, with a sister or grandmother in public housing,” said HANH Executive Director Karen Dubois-Walton
SO HANH commissioners included a prison re-entry program as part of its annual Moving To Work (MTW) plan approved at a board meeting Wednesday.
The program will give preference on the HANH waiting list to 12 individuals who are enrolled in the city government’s still-in-formation comprehensive plan for re-entry. The city’s community service administrator, Kica Matos, is spearheading the total effort to address the challenges New Haven faces from the reentry of people from prison into the community.
Each week the state releases an estimated 25 or more prisoners into New Haven, many wihtout any money or even a place to go. It’s unclear what kind of dent an annual 12-person housing preference list will make in the problem.
The 126-page MTW annual plan (being viewed by HANH commissioner chair Bob Solomon and commissioner David Alvarado in the photo), which HANH is required to submit to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, notes how ill-equipped the prison re-entry group often is. The plan cites lack of job training, support services, and housing. Furthermore, it states that HANH has determined that many of these individuals end up residing illegally in public-housing units with family members.
According to Dubois-Walton, that state of affairs puts the lease of the family members in jeopardy as well. “But it occurs because ex-offenders,” she said, “often don’t go through the usual HANH admission process.”
This comes about out of not-unfounded concerns that they will be turned down.
Dubois-Walton said she was not sure of the full details, but histories of certain kinds of crimes, such as drug ofeenses or arson, are grounds for total exclusion from HANH developments. “Crimes against people,” she said, “usually have to be ten years in the past.”
In other new initiatives, HANH is creating a program to help address people affected by the cascading foreclosure crisis. Fifty tenant-based housing choice vouchers are being set aside to prevent homelessness for people who might be losing their apartments due to foreclosure of properties where they reside.
A second feature, designed to help stabilize neighborhoods by preventing foreclosures, foresees setting aside a number of project-based vouchers for buildings where continuing home-ownership will act as a bulwark against blight.
The provision of consistent rental income, with project-based (as opposed to tenant-based) Section 8 vouchers, is seen as a key tool to help property owners with limited other resources to support their mortgage and prevent foreclosure.
Dubois-Walton said the foreclosure-prevention program, which is evolving with the help of Yale University, will also have a financial counseling feature to help property owners renegotiate loans.
After unanimous approval, both Solomon and Dubois-Walton congratulated their staffs on the completion of the MTW document. “Voting to approve is easy,” counseled Solomon. “Making it all happen is the hard part.”