CityViews: Government Can Close the Parole-to-Shelter Pipeline

Every year, 26,000 people are released from prison on parole and come home to New York City, and many end up in large, dehumanizing barracks-style shelters rife with violence and drug use. These are the very issues that they must overcome to successfully reenter the community. Because of a tangle of federal, state and city regulations and funding decisions, the already limited housing alternatives available to homeless or very low-income individuals are far more limited for people coming home after incarceration. Surely there’s a better way.

At The Fortune Society we have a program that works for a lot less money than it costs to warehouse someone in a shelter or on Rikers. Called “The Castle,” it’s located in West Harlem and is home to 62 individuals who are homeless and formerly incarcerated. In this op-ed for City Limits, Fortune Society’s President and CEO, JoAnne Page, discusses this alternative to the shelter system.