Preventing Homelessness

Connecting People Exiting Prisons to Housing in Colorado

A close-up of a person's hands clasped together while sitting on a couch, wearing a white long-sleeve shirt and olive-green pants. In the blurred foreground, another person is holding a clipboard and writing on a form, suggesting a therapy or counseling session

Project Context: 

  • In Colorado, people exiting the state prison system onto parole often have complex service needs and face barriers to securing stable housing.
    • A significant number of parolees each year either exit prison directly into homelessness or become homeless shortly after release. 
  • The landscape of housing available to people on parole is limited, as this population is typically ineligible for most Department of Housing and Urban Development-funded resources.
    • As a result, parolees often need help finding transitional housing and progressing toward stable housing upon release from prison. 
  • Traditional corrections agency data systems and assessments focus on public safety risks, not individual outcomes for people post-release. Because of this, there is limited data available on clients’ paths to housing and the risk of becoming homeless that people being released to parole face.  

How the GPL is Supporting: 

  • Introducing a Risk of Homelessness assessment prior to release from prison to identify clients at the highest risk of experiencing homelessness and target DOC case management services to prevent them being paroled into homelessness. 
  • Centralizing information on local housing programs. This includes data on services provided, target populations, and eligibility criteria to better inform DOC housing referrals and make successful matches between clients and programs. 
  • Improving warm connections to better connect clients exiting state prison to housing services, wraparound workforce, health, and social services and facilitating inter-agency data sharing and collaboration on complex cases.
     
Headshot of Rick Garcia in a suit and tie, smiling against a light background.
The Colorado Department of Local Affairs' work with the Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab is an exciting opportunity to enhance our capacity to deliver effective and efficient public services to Coloradans across the state. By leveraging their expertise in data analytics and performance management, DOLA can better understand and aim to address the complex challenges facing our communities. Rick M. Garcia
Executive Director, Colorado Department of Local Affairs (DOLA)

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