Throughout the country, prisons are stressing state budgets. Recidivism rates are high, driving costs even higher and reducing public safety. And for the small cohort of state inmates who have very high health care needs, the costs are higher still. Those men and women have histories of mental illness, substance use, chronic illness and homelessness -- and they cycle between the streets and expensive institutions, jails and prisons. But there's a solution that works to tackle the seemingly insurmountable problem of this high-need, high-cost group: supportive housing.
One state has already taken the lead in demonstrating the potential of supportive housing to reduce recidivism and costs. The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections (ODRC) saw the problem and built a supportive housing program for the men and women coming out of Ohio's prisons that would help keep them housed, healthy and stable. The Returning Home Ohio initiative focuses on people being released from prisons who have been chronically homeless -- with priority given to those with severe mental illness, a developmental disability or other ongoing challenges that make services necessary to maintain housing.
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