Milwaukee County To Receive Funding To Address Homelessness and Incarceration

MILWAUKEE – Today, Milwaukee County announced it was selected to participate in the Just Home Project, a national program to advance community-driven efforts to break the link between homelessness and incarceration led by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Urban Institute.

The Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) will receive $375,000 to create a plan to disrupt the cycle of homelessness and continued engagement with the criminal justice system. At the end of this planning process, Milwaukee County will be eligible to apply for additional funding from the MacArthur Foundation to implement their plan and acquire or develop housing for populations that are not currently served by existing housing resources.

“Housing security and affordability are critical issues facing our community. That’s why it’s welcome news Milwaukee County has been selected to participate in the Just Home Project so we can continue addressing these challenges head-on to ensure residents and families have access to housing, supportive services, and the second chance they need,” said Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. “This will be another tool in our multi-faceted approach to addressing housing insecurity and reducing recidivism rates. I am proud of this new partnership that will help advance our vision of achieving race and health equity to become the healthiest county in Wisconsin.”

“We are grateful to the MacArthur Foundation for this first of its kind investment in Milwaukee County,” said James Mathy, Housing Administrator, Milwaukee County DHHS.  “We see housing as a main social determinant of health and look forward to creating new and innovative models to ensure there are alternatives to incarceration that are focused on a housing solution.”

“The impact of the criminal justice system is far-reaching, and solutions to overincarceration require strategies to address its most critical drivers head-on.” said Laurie Garduque, Director of Criminal Justice at the MacArthur Foundation. “We look forward to working with people with lived experience, community members, local organizations and government stakeholders in Los Angeles, Buncombe County, Philadelphia, Allegheny County, Milwaukee and Missoula County to continue developing models to aid the crises of housing instability and overincarceration.”

“We’re excited to bring this blended model of grant funding, impact investment and technical assistance to support locally-driven solutions to more places,” said Kelly Walsh, Principal Policy Associate at the Urban Institute. “We’re especially grateful to the teams in each county who will be creating new housing resources for people at risk of remaining trapped in a cycle of housing instability and jail.”

Today, the jail-to-homelessness cycle persists in Milwaukee and across the country. In the United States, people experiencing unsheltered homelessness reported an average of 21 contacts with police in just six months, and people who have been incarcerated face significant barriers to finding and maintaining stable housing; this increases their risk of reincarceration. People with a history of justice involvement have limited access to housing assistance and face discriminatory screening when applying for housing. Experiencing chronic homelessness can also increase the chances that a person becomes involved with the justice system due to policies — that criminalize sleeping, sitting and asking for resources and money in public spaces.

The Just Home Project seeks to provide community-driven solutions to addressing this persistent and pervasive problem. This funding, coupled with technical support from the Urban Institute, ensures that Milwaukee County can create its own unique plans for addressing the crisis in their region. Each plan will be informed by the combined expertise of government officials, nonprofit partners and impacted community members. Upon the completion of these plans, communities will be eligible to apply for further investment from MacArthur to execute these strategies.

Upon the completion of their plan, Milwaukee County will have the opportunity to apply for additional support from MacArthur in the form of an impact investment, which expands MacArthur’s capacity to achieve its philanthropic goals.

Milwaukee County is a member of the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC), an initiative that began in 2015 to reduce the overall jail population as well as racial and ethnic disparities in jails. Since its involvement in the initiative in 2016, Milwaukee County has implemented strategies that have safely reduced its jail population by 4 percent.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.