Policy Approaches to Addressing the Intersections of Incarceration & Homelessness

This memo is a part of the Community Power & Policy Partnership’s Housing Policy for Belonging, a project aimed at uplifting the great student work happening across UC Berkeley’s campus. We are so grateful to these authors for wrestling their 40 page reports, written for technical clients into 5 page summaries for a wider housing audience. These memos offer lessons for advocates, funders, legislators, and other change-makers and serve as a resource for future research. 

California is facing dual crises: homelessness and incarceration. County service providers across the state are navigating compounding inequities to serve people who have experienced both incarceration and homelessness. This memo explores the ways the Continuums of Care (COCs) might develop more equitable programs by 1) incorporating a subpopulation in the Vulnerability Index, used to prioritize services for formerly incarcerated individuals, 2) targeting funding to address their unique needs, and 3) including impacted populations in designing and implementing social service programs. In the pursuit of stable and accessible housing for all, approaches need to be tailored to the unique experiences and needs of different groups.

This memo builds on an evaluation I completed in 2024 on the Alameda County Housing Crisis Response System, specifically exploring the intersecting experience of people with lived experiences of incarceration and homelessness through interviews with people with lived experience of incarceration and homelessness, service providers, and community partners. The stories shared by participants and stakeholders reveal the interconnectedness of care systems and how addressing homelessness needs to happen in collaboration with people with lived experience, service providers, executive leadership, community partners, and policymakers. The full report includes more details on the research methods and findings. 

The Cycle of Homelessness, Incarceration, Mental Health & Substance Use

My interviews with service providers and people with experiences of homelessness and incarceration in Alameda County echoes the interconnected challenges in serving the unique intersection of needs for people stuck in a cycle of homelessness and incarceration. Structural barriers to accessing support – like navigating fragmented service providers and the criminalization of poverty – are compounded by internal barriers – such as shame from the cultural stigma and systemic discrimination – leave formerly incarcerated individuals falling through the cracks and left to fend for themselves.

Of the 171,000 Californians experiencing homelessness, more than 70 percent have had at least one incidence of incarceration. People who live outdoors report increased interactions with law enforcement and feelings of constant surveillance. Additionally, people exiting jail or prison who do not receive adequate resources and support are likely to experience homelessness immediately after release and experience discrimination and barriers to housing because of their criminal backgrounds. Despite this connection, the data management systems that Continuums of Care (CoC) use to coordinate services are not set up to capture or track information about people experiencing homelessness who have also experienced incarceration.

Stories from people experiencing homelessness and incarceration in Alameda also highlighted how the trauma of homelessness and incarceration exacerbate mental health issues and substance use. Service providers underscored the ways homelessness and incarceration prevent people from getting the healthcare they need.

Figure 1: The Cycle of Homelessness, Incarceration, Mental Health, and Substance Use

Source: Author’s analysis.

These intersecting needs require the local and regional Continuums of Care (CoCs) who coordinate homelessness response systems to further collaborate with public health departments and programs. For people returning from incarceration, the fragmented programs make it confusing to access and navigate the programs available. Furthermore, stakeholders in Alameda shared the importance of a continuation of services pre-release, upon-release, and post-release.   

“Like when I came out, maybe they could have said, ‘Hey, here’s a program. You go to this, you do this, and you can stay. You have your apartment or whatever, and here’s, you know, a job,’ you know, and that kind of stuff. So, if they could help out with that, that would be, I think that would keep a lot of people out of prison.” – Carmen (Rodeway)

These systemic barriers to getting out of the cycle of homelessness and incarceration, accompanied by cultural stigmas, fuel feelings of shame and unworthiness that further deter people with these experiences from taking advantage of available services.

The feelings of shame, overwhelm, and fear emphasize the need for a narrative shift that humanizes people experiencing homelessness and incarceration, shifting towards understanding its systemic roots instead of perpetuating individual blame.   

The following recommendations aim to reimagine the system and culture of providing services to people experiencing homelessness and incarceration; they build on efforts to address  group-based disparities in providing social services – including for veterans and people of color. Tracking people with experience of incarceration in data management systems, dedicating funding for people experiencing homelessness and incarceration, and including people with lived experience in the design and implementation of service programs, not only improves outcomes for people in this subpopulation but also leads to more inclusive, culturally-informed, and accessible programs and policies for everyone.

Standardizing Data for Understanding Patterns

To better serve people with experiences of homelessness and incarceration, CoCs need consistent data on the subpopulation to be able to design and evaluate more equitable programs.

Despite the fact that the majority of people experiencing homelessness in California have experienced incarceration, federal, state, and local data management systems do not share a standard definition of “incarceration,” making it difficult to track outcomes for this subpopulation. The Housing Management Information System (HMIS), which is used at the federal level, asks clients about their prior living situation before their current episode of homelessness, and the client can select an institutional setting such as jail. Point-In-Time Count asks, “Have you had interactions with the criminal justice system within the last year, including probation, parole, court appearances, arrests, tickets, etc.?” Lastly, each CoC might include their own question on incarceration; for example, the Alameda Crisis Housing Assessment asks “In the past five years have you or another adult in your household been arrested by the police?”

These varied data points obscure the impact of incarceration on accessing homeless services: ignoring the long-lasting impacts of incarceration, conflating personal experience with another in one’s household, and conflating incarceration with civil court appearances and driving tickets. If we never explicitly ask about the carceral experience of people accessing housing services, we miss out on understanding and meeting the specific needs of most people experiencing homelessness.

To ensure accurate homelessness data, HUD must use a standard definition of “incarceration” across all HMIS platforms and census forms, providing guidance for local housing providers and government entities. Establishing a standard definition for people who have experienced incarceration could follow in the footsteps of programs to serve other vulnerable groups. For example, Alameda County’s recent effort to address homelessness among people of color, specifically African Americans and Native Americans, started by tracking racial disparities in rates of homelessness, access to housing resources, and housing outcomes. By highlighting these disparities, the county was able to revise its housing response system to better meet the needs of people most impacted by homelessness. Similarly, the City of Berkeley started collecting data to better understand transitional-age youth (TAY). These findings led to the expansion of housing access points for TAY and allowed existing TAY service providers to conduct housing assessments for their clients. Centering the unique homelessness experiences of TAY and people of color resulted, allowing program managers to better understand their unique experience accessing housing resources. 

In order to improve housing access and outcomes, we must invest in addressing the needs special populations – in other words, those more vulnerable to harm and discrimination because of their lived experience  (such as formerly incarcerated individuals, veterans, or survivors of domestic violence) and/or aspects of their identity (age, race, disability). When we better understand the impact of homelessness on different groups of people, we begin to uncover the interconnectedness of homelessness with larger systems and policies — especially incarceration.

Targeting Funding, Closing the Service Gap

Standardizing the definition of “incarceration” for CoCs data management systems enables targeted investments and programs to better serve people with experiences of homelessness and incarceration.

Additionally, people with lived experience of incarceration should be included as a demographic level similar to veteran status to ensure better data and tracking of their access to housing, housing outcomes, and service needs. Through a collaboration with HUD and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, veterans are prioritized for permanent supportive housing through the Veterans Housing and Homelessness Prevention Program (VHHP). In 2014, California passed Proposition 41, allocating $600 million in state funds for housing facilities for veterans and their families. Through VHHP, veterans are also able to access a host of other resources, such as behavioral health and physical health care through the federal and state housing response system. As a result of these efforts, between 2020-2022, there has been a 23 percent decrease in the number of veterans experiencing homelessness in Alameda County, according to the 2022 Homeless Count.

Acknowledging “people who have experienced incarceration” as a subpopulation allows for designated funding for closing the service gap between pre- and post-release, and funding housing models for people upon release from jail or prison. For example, establishing a housing resource center in the local county jail would allow adults in custody to access housing resources before release. Housing navigators in the jail can connect people directly to programs before release so they are released into housing rather than homelessness. These services and programs can be done in collaboration with jail staff as well, expanding on the existing supports such as counselors and transition planners that may already be available to people. There is potential to build upon already existing models, such as probation funded housing programs, while also creating new models for people who do not qualify for probation or want to explore other options. 

Collaboration for Better Service Provision

The needs of people with lived experience of incarceration and homelessness are unique and demand their involvement in the design, development, and implementation of housing services and systems of care wherever possible. Further, this intersection of experiences holds a vast variety of housing needs and wants: in my conversations with people experiencing homelessness in Alameda County, I heard a shared desire to have a place to call their own, but varying priorities for living near friends, family, and other support structures.  Empowering the end-user of the social service program to be a part of shaping that program not only brings better outcomes, but can be a transformative tool for building up a sense of agency and connection.

Including people with lived experience in planning and implementation could take many forms. It might mean establishing community advisory boards for program research and evaluation such as UCSF’s model for their statewide study of homelessness response programs. Similarly, Envision Community in Minneapolis enrolled the help of people with lived experience in developing the operations handbook for a new housing type for people who have experienced homelessness. The inclusion of people with experience of homelessness and incarceration in program design joins a growing movement for co-governance, building power across a variety of policy issues.

When developing housing models and services, a full and representative assessment of community needs and desires —which may involve differing opinions — should be diligently collected and considered as often as is feasible. The more we can understand the specific experiences and needs of people, the more informed our services, policies, and systems are.

Humanizing Policy for People Experiencing Homelessness & Incarceration

Overall, people with lived experience should be involved in the design, development, and implementation of housing services and systems of care wherever possible. In developing housing models and services, a full and representative assessment of community needs and desires, which may involve differing opinions, should be diligently collected and considered as often as is feasible. The above recommendations should be taken as a guide — rather than a directive — to support local, state, and national efforts to develop programs, services, and systems that ensure the housing needs of people with lived experience of incarceration are met. When the experiences of people are centered in political and structural change, systems and policies are inherently humanizing and responsive. 

While it can be challenging to meet the needs of every person within the population of focus, this memo calls attention to the possibilities for building better systems of support in collaboration with people with lived experience, direct service providers, community members, and policymakers. I see it as a catalyst for further examination and research around developing housing models and systems of care informed by people’s unique experiences and histories of incarceration and homelessness. By listening to and centering the stories of people with experiences of homelessness and incarceration, I wish to bring to light the wisdom and hope that this population brings in guiding us to a future without homelessness, incarceration, and poverty.

Editor's note: The ideas expressed in this blog are not necessarily those of the Othering & Belonging Institute or UC Berkeley, but belong to the author.