Executive Summary
Access to safe, affordable housing is fundamental for reentry success. Returning residents that attain housing stability are more likely to achieve other obligations of reentry and experience lower rates of recidivism. Because affordable reentry housing can reduce the likelihood of subsequent carceral system involvement, expanding access to housing assistance for returning residents is critically important for the 28,000 people released from Illinois prisons annually and the communities across the state that they call home.
One model provides returning residents with tenant-based vouchers to aid their housing search. The Partnership for Housing Access, an eighteen-month pilot program, was created to test such an approach in Cook County, Illinois. As part of this effort, clients of the Cook County Rehabilitative Alternative to Probation Court/ Women’s Rehabilitative Alternative to Probation Court who lacked access to safe, affordable housing received tenant-based vouchers from the Housing Authority of Cook County and a web of support services provided by Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities. The pilot sought to assist returning residents secure permanent housing, fill a critical void in current reentry support, and provide a potential platform for reentry success.
This report includes a discussion of the reentry housing shortage in Illinois, description of pilot design, review of implementation and evaluation, and exploration of pilot successes and limitations, to guide future replication of the tenant-based voucher model across the state. It outlines key strategies for implementing this approach in other jurisdictions and identifies systemic policy recommendations that will help to support returning residents obtain greater access to affordable housing.
