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Abstract
An emerging literature has documented the challenges that formerly incarcerated individuals face in securing stable housing. Given the increasingly unaffordable rental market, rental subsidies represent an important and understudied source of stable housing for this population. The existing literature has described substantial discretion and a varied policy landscape that determine former prisoners’ access to housing subsidies, or subsidized housing spaces that are leased to members of their social and family networks. Less is known about how former prisoners themselves interpret and navigate this limited and uncertain access to subsidized housing. Drawing on data from repeated qualitative interviews with 44 former prisoners, we describe the creative and often labor-intensive strategies that participants employed to navigate discretion and better position themselves for subsidized housing that was in high demand, but also largely out of reach. Our findings also illustrate the potential costs associated with these strategies for both participants and members of their social and family networks.
Acknowledgments
We thank Amy Smoyer, Ana María del Río González, and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and assistance with this project. We are also grateful to the participants of the Structures, Health and Risk among Re-entrants, Probationers and Partners (SHARRPP) study for sharing their experiences with our research team. The research for this article was supported by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) (grant 1R01DA025021-01). This research was also facilitated by the services and resources provided by the District of Columbia Center for AIDS Research, an National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded program (AI117970), which is supported by the following NIH Co-Funding and Participating Institutes and Centers: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), NIDA, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), National Institute on Aging (NIA), Fogarty International Center (FIC), National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), and Office of AIDS Research (OAR). Additional support was received from Yale University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (National Institute of Mental Health grant number P30MH062294). We would like to thank the Connecticut Department of Correction (DOC) and Court Support Services Division (CSSD) for their cooperation with this research. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of project funders or partners.
Notes on Contributors
Danya Keene is an assistant professor in the Department of Social Behavioral Sciences at the Yale School of Public Health. Her research examines housing and place as determinants of health inequality.
Alana Rosenberg is a research associate at the Yale School of Public Health. She has managed several mixed methods research projects, and is particularly interested in qualitative and participatory research methods aimed at better understanding structural barriers to health.
Penelope Schlesinger is a research assistant at the Yale School of Public Health. Her research focuses on the social determinants of health and health disparities.
Monica Guo is a recent MPH graduate of the Department of Social Behavioral Sciences at Yale School of Public Health. Her research focuses on the intersection of housing, neighborhoods, and health.
Kim M. Blankenship, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Community Health and Prevention at Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health. Her research focuses on social inequalities and health (especially HIV) and structural interventions to promote health.