May 8, 2009

Women are the fastest-growing segment of the prison population, and incarcerating them for nonviolent offenses can be both costly to the community and devastating to the families they leave behind.

Many women arrested in Cook County for prostitution are homeless; when they are released from jail, they often have nowhere to go except back to their pimps. Women without housing are twice as likely as those with housing to be detained more than six times.

That's why Heartland Alliance, along with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless and other partners, has been developing community-based alternatives to incarceration for women. A new pilot program helps women arrested for prostitution get housing and the services they need to rebuild their lives.

The pilot program is based on Heartland Alliance's successful Families Building Community program. Families Building Community (FBC) has been providing supportive services for families in their transition from shelters to permanent housing for more than 15 years. FBC uses intensive case-management services, a rental subsidy, and  follow-up case management to help participants maintain their housing and improve their lives. Nearly 80 percent of FBC participants have been able to support themselves in unsubsidized housing one year after graduating from the program.

Services in the pilot program include case management, children's services, financial literacy training, and trauma-recovery therapy groups. The program also includes an extra component of mentoring with women who have been out of prostitution for at least five years and are now stable and successful in the community. Transitional Jobs training is available for participants through Heartland Alliance's WomanCraft artisan papermaking social enterprise and Workforce Development & Investment programming.

So far, the program has placed 11 women in housing, and after 18 months there have been no probation violations or recidivism.

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