Welcome to \u201cDC Public Safety\u201d \u2013 Radio and television shows, blog and transcripts on crime, criminal offenders and the criminal justice system. We currently average 90,000 page views a month.<\/p>\n
The portal site for \u201cDC Public Safety\u201d is http:\/\/media.csosa.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n Radio Program available at http:\/\/media.csosa.gov\/podcast\/audio\/2012\/10\/housing-and-offender-reentry-the-urban-institute-dc-public-safety-radio\/<\/a><\/p>\n [Audio Begins]<\/p>\n Len Sipes: From the nation\u2019s capital, this is DC Public Safety. I\u2019m your host Leonard Sipes. We\u2019re talking today about housing and offender reentry. Back at our microphones, the Urban Institute, always, always, always happy to have them by our microphone. Jocelyn Fontaine is a Senior Research Associate. www.urban.org<\/a>. She has a piece of research, supportive housing for returning offenders, that is an evaluation from the State of Ohio state prison system. It was done in conjunction with The Corporation for Supportive Housing and the results are really gonna surprise you. I really am pleased to welcome to our microphones Jocelyn Fontaine, Senior Research Associate, Urban Institute. Jocelyn, welcome to DC Public Safety.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Thank you for having me.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: I really am happy to have you because this is a very important topic. We talk about offender reentry a lot and we talk about substance abuse and we talk about mental health and we talk about jobs, but rarely do we ever talk about housing and you have some really interesting findings. So give me a background, some background on the project and the research.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Absolutely. So a few years ago, around 2006 and 2007, the state prison system in Ohio partnered with the Corporation for Supportive Housing on a Supportive Housing pilot. They were looking for a way to get folks who are leaving their system into housing and wanted to partner with The Corporation for Supportive Housing who does this work, to help them to figure out how can we get folks into housing in the community, based on the assumption that if we get people into housing, they can get linked up to the services that they need \u2013<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Right.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: They\u2019re better able to find and maintain jobs and we can also reduce recidivism, which is costly for the state and of course, is a public safety concern. So they partnered on this Supportive Housing pilot which was focused on those who would benefit the most from supportive housing. So that is individuals with histories of residential instability, as well as behavioral health challenges, and they started out with wanting to house about 84 people coming out of the state prison system, this was state wide. It was first implemented in 10 correctional institutions and then they expanded it to three more, so it was 13 total. And they housed far more than the 84 that they initially intended to.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Oh, how many did they house?<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: They housed, in our pilot, or the evaluation that we did, there were more than 118 or so folks.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Wow.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: But they housed far more than that, and it\u2019s in fact still going on today, so they\u2019re still housing folks.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: That\u2019s great.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: But they housed far more than 100 folks into supportive housing in five of the larger cities in the State of Ohio, so that was Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo and Dayton.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Right.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: And in fact like I said, people are still housed in the program and it\u2019s got some pretty good findings.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Well, the findings are astounding, I\u2019ve spent a career looking at recidivism research and we at the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency like to think that we are a research based agency, we all read the research and discuss the research. These are some of the most significant findings I\u2019ve ever heard in terms of recidivism. So you were able to find a certain percentage reduction in rearrest and a certain percentage reduction in reincarcerations. Tell me about them please.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Sure. So we\u2019re pretty proud of the evaluation that we were able to do. It was a quasi-experimental design, which essentially meant that we expected the interest in the housing pilot to exceed their ability to house people, especially since it was implemented in 13 institutions, so what we wanted to do was a natural comparison group and that is get folks who looked similar but weren\u2019t able to be housed by the pilot due to the limitations that they had in only having 84 housing beds. So that was our comparison group, so individuals who looked like those who got the housing, but weren\u2019t able to because of the capacity of the program. We tracked those folks for a year following their release and we found that the RHO participants, and that stands for the Returning Home Ohio, that\u2019s the pilot project, that the RHO participants were significantly less likely to be rearrested within one year. We found that the participants were 40% in fact, less likely to be rearrested than the comparison group subjects. And we also found that the participants in the RHO program were significantly less likely to be reincarcerated, which is one of the more interesting findings for the state prison system, since of course they want to reduce rearrest, but they\u2019re mostly interested in people coming back into the prison system.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Sure. Well, then that was a 60% reduction in reincarcerations right?<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: They were 60% less likely to be reincarcerated within one year, yeah.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Right. Now that\u2019s amazing, Jocelyn, because you take a look at offender reentry research across the board and just last week we had Nancy La Vigne, the Urban Institute, the famous Nancy La Vigne at these microphones and we were talking about the fact that most of the research projects that measure offender reentry probably go in the 10 to 20% range when they are successful, not all are successful. It\u2019s, would be na\u00efve to believe that every piece of research out there, every effort out there is going to reduce recidivism. Some research studies show that they don\u2019t. The ones that do seem to run in that 10% to 20% range. Having a 40% reduction in rearrest and having a 60% reduction in reincarcerations is astounding.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Yeah, well, we\u2019re talking, just to make sure that we\u2019re clear, so we\u2019re talking about the likelihood that they\u2019re going to be rearrested and reincarcerated \u2013<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Right.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: But we are very proud of the outcomes, very proud of the findings, especially since we only had a one year window to look at outcomes.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Right.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: And that is important to mention because not all of the folks who were in the treatment group or that got the housing, got the housing for a full year that we looked at their outcomes.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Right, right?<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: So we\u2019d expect actually the benefits of the program to be even greater, once we\u2019re able to look at a longer outcome period and I\u2019m currently working with the state prison system and the Corporation for Supportive Housing to continue to track folks, because we found, and something that I think is also interesting to talk about is, even though we had interested participants and interested providers and making the seamless link from release from prison to supportive housing in the community, we found that it wasn\u2019t that seamless, that it took some time to get people into the housing upon release, so all that\u2019s to say that once we feel that people are actually having the housing itself for one full year or longer, that we\u2019d find even greater reductions in the recidivism rate and even greater benefits.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: There are endless questions that are running through my mind in terms of process and how it began and how you were able to convince landlords to bring people from the state prison system into homes that they rent. But this gets to the larger issue of recidivism across the board, we need to mention, I think we talked about before the show, the fact that they\u2019ve received other services as well. So they were just not housing, there were a variety of stabilization services that I think dealt with substance abuse and mental health?<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Absolutely.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Tell me about those.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: So this was a group that ranged from, I guess relatively low need to high need. So what this program was able to do, and I\u2019m quite proud of them for doing that, was house a range of folks with different needs. Now, supportive housing is supposed to be target for those individuals at the higher need level, but there were some people in the housing who had lower needs and lower or less significant histories of substance abuse and mental illness so all that\u2019s to say is that what the program did was working with providers so they would assess individual need once they came into the program and determine what services do they need as part of their supportive housing suite of services.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Right.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: So supportive housing can range from just having a case manager, to more wrap around services. Linkage to employment to the extent that that\u2019s you know, feasible and appropriate, as well as, you know, recovery services, a whole range of things that go into supportive housing on top of the provision of affordable housing. And we also looked at, as you mentioned, whether people were getting linked up to services and we found that those individuals who were part of the program were significantly more likely to use state billable mental health and substance abuse services and more quickly, so that is a great finding of this project is that especially if we\u2019re thinking about the folks who were in the program as being previously under, unserved, that they are getting linked up to the mental health and substance abuse services that they need, more likely to get linked up to those services and receiving more of those services.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Was there a way of measuring the various services to see if housing was the key variable, or whether it was substance abuse or job assistance or mental health evaluation, was there a way of ferreting out discreet variables to the degree of saying, \u201cHey, it was 10% substance abuse and 10% housing and 5% mental health.\u201d I would imagine that would take a tremendous piece of research to do that, but were you able to do that?<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Yeah, we weren\u2019t\u2019 and that\u2019s actually an excellent question. So this story, it\u2019s a great one, but it\u2019s also a story I guess, like other research, a variation. So we had various types of offenders come through this program and then we also had various providers providing the service, so the providers were across the five cities, as I mentioned. They were a mix of both scatter site and single site housing agencies, so that is, they either managed or maintained a large building of affordable housing, of which the former offenders were part of that housing building, to agencies that worked with landlords and said, \u201cHey, we\u2019re providing the housing, or we\u2019ll pay for the housing, will you allow this person, Jocelyn Fontaine, to live in your housing building?\u201d<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Right, right.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: The agencies also ranged in the type of services that they offered. Some, it was primarily just case management services and referrals to other agencies for things, all the way to one agency that really provided a range of services, it was a requirement of participation in their program that they participate in a lot of services. So putting all of that into one regression, one statistical model, we\u2019re not able to tease out the relative benefits of the type of services that folks got, but that just calls for more research and we\u2019re happy to do that and it\u2019s a good thing too to see that even with all of this variation, that you know, the program still stuck. That meant that the providers got it right, that the program itself was able to match individuals to the housing services pretty well, or else we probably wouldn\u2019t have had the findings that we had.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Jocelyn, I\u2019m going to, want you to take off your methodological hat and put on your opinion hat now.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Okay.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: What do you think is the impact of having stable housing? Parole and probation agencies throughout this country routinely report that a third of the people who they supervise are in unstable housing. It may be a shelter, it may be on the street, it may be you know, you\u2019re at your Mom\u2019s house, but your Mom said, \u201cHey, two months, and you\u2019re out.\u201d Then they shift over to their brother, he and the brother get into an argument, then they shift over to his sister, you know, brother in law\u2019s not terribly happy about this, then he shifts over to a girlfriend, they break up. I mean, housing seems to be a key issue for an awful lot of offenders, and so what this research suggests is that it may be more important than we originally thought.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: I think that\u2019s right. As a housing person, I think it\u2019s very important. You know, if you get an employment reentry person, they\u2019re gonna say the jobs, but I like to think of housing as both the figurative and literal foundation that successful reentry can be launched. So it is my opinion that if someone doesn\u2019t have stable housing, it\u2019s difficult for them to find and maintain employment. If a person is worried about where they\u2019re gonna sleep that night, it\u2019s difficult for them to maintain their sobriety or continue on their regimen for mental health services for example. So I think it is extremely important and if you know, someone doesn\u2019t have a place to sleep, if they\u2019re worried about their housing, I think it\u2019s difficult for them to think also about, you know, finding a job, being able to go to that job every single day, maintain good hours, having the clothing that they need in order to be successful in that job, having the rest that they need if they\u2019re, you know, worrying about where they\u2019re gonna lay their heads. So I think we need to think of housing as a platform for successful reentry, not only is it you know, a good thing to get people into housing, but thinking of housing, again, as that platform. So once people are into stable housing and it doesn\u2019t necessarily have to be supportive housing, right? Its affordable housing, and appropriate housing placement, then folks can begin to be more successful on these other outcomes like job, reducing their substance use, getting medications for physical or mental health, reunifying with their family and friends.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Several offenders have told me throughout my career that the housing component to them was one of the most important parts of coming out. That and supportive friends, supportive family and this is why I think the faith based program that we run and volunteer programs that try to mentor to people coming out of the prison system become so important, that it was quiet place to go and be by themselves and to provide a, it provides a certain sense of stabilization in the psychological well being of their lives. I mean, they just said, \u201cMy God, I mean, after being in prison and being around people all the time and then you go over to my brother\u2019s house and I was over there with his family and you have no privacy and suddenly you have the ability to sleep when you want to think, when you want to contemplate life, that they found it to be psychologically comforting and a psychological comfort level that will allow them to do the certain things that they had to do. So am I in the ballpark or am I being Pollyannaish about this?<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: No, I think that sounds about right. That\u2019s how we think of our own housing, right?<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Yes, that\u2019s exactly right. That\u2019s exactly right. That\u2019s how we \u2013<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: So we should expect that from other folks as well and it\u2019s just you know, when we release folks without proper housing placements and it makes sense that people rely on their family mostly in the, you know, the initial days of their release, but we need to be honest that sometimes that\u2019s not the best housing placement and we found in some of the work that Nancy La Vigne has done and we\u2019ve continued to do in more recent reentry evaluations is that people would like to be able to have their own place and to not have to rely on their family so much and have acknowledged, you know, which I think is quite honestly, that it\u2019s not the best place, it\u2019s not you know, the best place to go is back with family and heavily relying on them and perhaps not being able to support your family in the way that you should, in order to be able to stay living in their housing. So it makes sense to me that there\u2019s these psychological benefits of housing.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: We\u2019re more than halfway through the program. Our guest today is Jocelyn Fontaine; she is the Senior Research Associate with the Urban Institute. www.urban.org<\/a> www.urban.org<\/a>. Housing and offender reentry is the topic of today\u2019s program. She did a piece of research with others called Supportive Housing for Returning Prisoners, a program in Ohio that has astoundingly wonderful results, reduced rearrest by 40%, reduced reincarcerations by 60%. Jocelyn, with 700,000 people coming out of the state and local prison systems, state and federal prison systems every single year. 700,000, that\u2019s just an immense number of human beings that are transitioning from the prison system to the state levels and transitioning to federal parole and probation authorities like mine. You know, the states are screaming bloody murder about their budgets and they\u2019re saying, they\u2019re reducing incarcerations, they\u2019re closing prisons, they\u2019re trying to come to grips with trying different things to reduce the rate of reincarceration, reduce the rate of recidivism because A: it cuts back dramatically on criminal victimization, but B: to them I think more importantly, it cuts a back on how much money they have to spend.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Exactly.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: And that\u2019s a reality for governors throughout this country. I\u2019ve maintained that governors have had this conversation with every state correctional administrator in the country, that you\u2019ve gotta learn to live within your budgets and you\u2019ve gotta learn to find a way to reduce the amount of people coming back. This seems to hold some promise; this seems to hold something that people should consider.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Yep, and I want to give credit to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction for you know, very much going out on a limb and funding this program, and funding the research. I don\u2019 t know if we mentioned that, but that\u2019s pretty progressive and innovative to, \u201cLet\u2019s see if this housing sticks\u201d and then waiting it out to see. As I mentioned earlier on, this started in 2006, we just finished the research just a couple of months ago. So their willingness to participate in the research study, to put themselves under scrutiny, to allow us to come in to look at their data and see what happens, is, a credit to them, that they\u2019re you know, a progressive state that\u2019s willing to look at this in a different way.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: And Ohio Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has been a progressive entity over the course of the last quarter century. They always seem to be taking a lead in terms of taking a look at how they operate and what the impact is. Jocelyn, what are the policy implications of all of this, the average person sitting here in Washington DC, the average person listening to this program in New York City and Honolulu and San Francisco, they\u2019re gonna take a look at their housing situation in those particular cities, which are some of the most expensive cities in the world, and they\u2019re gonna say, \u201cWait a minute.\u201d Giving housing to people coming out of the prison system, I can\u2019t even find housing for my kid.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Yeah.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: I desperately want my own kid to get out of my own house, but he or she can\u2019t afford it and here we are providing arrangements, making arrangements and in some cases, paying for them, to find supportive housing upon release from the prison system. So what are the policy implications, what are the practical lessons that governors and mayors and county executives and parole and probation administrators can pull from this?<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: I think one is that collaboration and partnerships are a good thing and that they work. The state prison system didn\u2019t go it alone here, they worked with an agency that has a history of doing this, that has helped jurisdictions across the country and in fact they\u2019re doing this work in other places beyond Ohio, so working with the Corporation for Supportive Housing to say, \u201cLook, we\u2019re releasing these guys. Some of them are appropriate for supportive housing. Help us figure out how to make it work.\u201d The Corporation for Supportive Housing is you know, knows hey there\u2019s these community based providers that are providing this service to people in the community, right?<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Right.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: And that there\u2019s a percentage of them that have these criminal justice histories. They\u2019re there, right? 700,000 people you just mentioned the number \u2013<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Yes, every year.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: That means that\u2019s a lot of people who are in the community that are receiving supportive housing with these criminal justice histories. So what they\u2019ve tried to do is just say, \u201cLet\u2019s extend this.\u201d So these agencies are already doing this work, the prison system is releasing people, so let\u2019s just make that linkage a little bit more seamless so that they can extend or reach into the prisons to get these guys and then therefore we\u2019d have better reentry outcomes. So I think that\u2019s a lesson that you already have agencies in your communities doing this work, they\u2019re already providing supportive housing.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: They\u2019re already doing it.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: They\u2019re already doing it, so why don\u2019t we just toward better outcomes, so that these guys aren\u2019t hitting the community with no housing placements, nowhere to go, see if it works, you know? See if we can create this linkage and you know, if the Department of Corrections they\u2019re willing to spend this money, Ohio was willing to do it knowing that if we spend it now, that\u2019s savings that we\u2019ll get later because they\u2019re not coming back \u2013<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Right!<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Then it\u2019s a worthwhile investment. And of course, that\u2019s for jurisdictions to decide on their own, but it was beneficial in Ohio.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: And also the savings in terms of criminal victimizations.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Exactly.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: I mean, you have a situation where if you could produce 40% fewer arrests, 60% fewer reincarcerations, I mean, that would save tens of billions of dollars over the long run in terms of every state in the country, but you can see how difficult it is because the average person is gonna say to themselves, \u201cWait a minute, I can\u2019t afford housing, why are you giving it to people coming out of the prison system?\u201d The flip side of that is that it saves people from being victimized and it saves taxpayers a tremendous amount of money.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Exactly. And there are other small things that can be done, right? So here, in this program, the state prison system was actually funding the housing, but there are other things that can be done just by a prison system creating more information for returning prisoners, about available housing placement, right? And it doesn\u2019t have to be a situation which the correctional department is paying for all of someone\u2019s rent; it could be a percentage, right?<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Right, right.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: That get\u2019s phased out over time as person gets linked up to more gainful employment.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: And the percentage may be just enough to tip the scale.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Exactly, exactly.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: It may be just enough to get that person in a supportive housing in to dramatically increase the chances of the person \u2013<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Getting a job. . .<\/p>\n Len Sipes: . . . Doing well, getting a job, becoming a taxpayer, not a tax burden, and especially if they\u2019re linked to other supportive services like mental health and substance abuse treatment and job services, but the, you know, so the other part of it is that they come back into these same communities and people sit there and go, \u201cWell, you know, I\u2019m not close to those communities, that doesn\u2019t mean anything to me.\u201d But one of out of every 42 people in the United States are under the auspices of or actually being supervised by a parole and probation agency.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Yeah.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: So my, what I say to people is that you come into contact every single day with people on supervision by a parole and probation agency, you just don\u2019t know it. If you\u2019ve, some criminologists, I\u2019ve heard the figure, one in 20 and I have no documentation to one in 20, they just gave their opinion in terms of people who have been caught up in the criminal justice system in the past, but everybody, every single day, comes into contact with people who have been caught up, currently, or in the past, with the criminal justice system. So I guess my question is that do you want them coming out with support so they won\u2019t reoffend and so you won\u2019t have to pay for them again, or not? What\u2019s your comfort level?<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Exactly.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: The person comes out of the prison system with mental health problems; don\u2019t you want that person to receive mental health treatment?<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Exactly.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: And doesn\u2019t that protect you and your family and your kids and your neighbors and your friends?<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Yep, and we\u2019ve heard that from landlords, as part of this housing study, or even employers, as part of other reentry evaluations that we\u2019ve done, who\u2019ve said, you know, these guys or these gals in this program are better than the other folks that you know, that I\u2019m employing because they have a case manager, because they\u2019re part of a program, because someone\u2019s watching, not over them, but helping them out, that they have somebody, some support system, someone that\u2019s focused on their reentry goals. And so you know, just like you said, you know, without a doubt, these folks are coming back and so if, you know, we can provide them with some supports, you know, I think that that goes a long way towards better reentry outcomes so that people aren\u2019t coming back into the system.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: It\u2019s my guess that an employer is going to be far more prone to hire somebody if they have stable housing. It\u2019s my guess that in a discretionary world, where people go in and get drug treatment, you know, it is discretionary. I mean, people do chose who gets drug treatment and who doesn\u2019t and I would guess that people would be more prone, or more apt to say, \u201cYes, let\u2019s provide this person with drug treatment. He has stable housing, we\u2019re not gonna have to worry about him wandering the streets, we\u2019re not gonna have to worry about him deteriorating because he has no place to go.\u201d It just seems to be a platform for other good things to happen in that person\u2019s life which is why I\u2019m guessing, and I think you\u2019re guessing the same thing, that we have a 40% reduction in rearrest and a 60% reduction in reincarcerations.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Absolutely.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: And that, you know, that platform, that just absolutely intrigues me. Final words, we\u2019re in the final three minutes of the program, Jocelyn. So we talked about policy implications, we talked about landlords, we talked about mayors considering this sort of a program, they need to get beyond, do they not, the fear that they may be criticized, for providing housing for people coming out of the prison system? Again, considering that there\u2019s a lot of people who can\u2019t afford housing to begin with?<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Yeah, I think you know, here\u2019s the public campaigning that mayors and other public officials need to do is what you said earlier, realizing that it may not be your brother or your sister or someone in your family member, but it is likely to be someone in your community, and so realizing that these folks are coming back, that we\u2019re paying for them in one way or another, that we do well to be paying for them in a strategic and a smart way and known to be effective way, other than you know, thinking, \u201cIt\u2019s not my problem and I don\u2019t have to deal with this, I don\u2019t have to pay for it.\u201d And the fact is that you do, and so when people are rearrested and reincarcerated, we are certainly paying for it, so we do well to think more strategically about what\u2019s more effective use of our taxpayer dollars.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: They\u2019re a five to ten minute drive from 70%, 80% of any metropolitan, anybody living in any metropolitan area.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Definitely.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: When I was with the Maryland Department of Public Safety, I was well known because I did a lot of television work and you wouldn\u2019t believe all the different people caught up under supervision, who would greet me and say, \u201cMr. Sipes, how are you doing? I saw you on television. Yeah, I\u2019m in from this pre-release system and I\u2019m working here.\u201d And it\u2019s like, \u201cWow.\u201d You don\u2019t know how many people who are delivering your pizza, filling your gas tank \u2013<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Exactly.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Handling your order, helping you out, doing your lawn care, doing your maintenance work, who are caught up in the criminal justice system? You just don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Yeah, and that\u2019s the sad part, but. . .<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Yeah, and having them having supportive housing and having them have supportive services does seem to make a difference.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Yep.<\/p>\n Len Sipes: Not necessarily as high as your difference, but it does, nevertheless, make a difference.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Fontaine: Yeah, absolutely.<\/p>\n