People released from prison often face barriers to resuming their lives. Among them: difficulty securing housing. Montgomery County will be part of a new program to confront this issue.
Montgomery County and Dayton are joining seven other communities nationwide in the new Housing Justice Peer Network program. It’s run by New York University’s Housing Solutions Lab and the Center for Justice Innovation in New York and comes at no cost to participate.
The program will last 18 months, with a focus on small to mid-sized communities. The goal is to have participants look at their current resources, support one another through peer learning and make work plans for tangible change in housing access. Each plan will be tailored to the communities they aim to serve.
“We know that justice-involved people are at a much higher risk of housing instability, and we know that housing-insecure people are at a much higher risk of bad outcomes in the criminal legal system,” said Jess Wunsch, director of city engagement with the Housing Solutions Lab.
Barriers like background checks leading to discrimination and limited job opportunities can make it difficult for returning citizens to find housing, she said.
And what made Montgomery County stand out among applicants? Its track record for collaborative thinking and innovating, said Wunsch.
“In Montgomery County's case, they’re really focused on the highest-need people that go through both the housing and criminal justice systems,” Wunsch said. ”They think about how to find creative funding, how to find program solutions for people who have very high barriers to finding housing and [that] may not get the support they need from traditional supportive housing services.”
Montgomery County has an Office of Reentry, an appointed reentry council, as well as a housing subcommittee within that council.
“One of the things that the housing subcommittee does [is] ‘landlord lunch and learns.’ We really try to educate landlords in Montgomery County around how they can feel more comfortable providing housing to returning citizens,” said Haley Caretta, director of strategic initiatives with the county.
In 2024, 320 people returned to Montgomery County after they were released from prison, according to the county. Data collection, policy brainstorming and cross-sector collaboration are a few tools the county will use throughout the program, said Caretta. She hopes people come to understand this issue to know how meaningful the results can be.
“By the end of this program, we would really love to say ‘we have implemented X, Y, and Z’ and ‘we're seeing this many returning citizens find stable housing,’ ‘we've been able to support this many over time,’” she said.
