The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Urban Institute have announced the launch of a program designed to break the links between housing instability and jail incarceration.

According to the foundation, one in four people experienced periods of homelessness in the year before their incarceration, and the problem has worsened due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Just Home Project will provide the communities of Charleston County, South Carolina; Minnehaha County, South Dakota; the city and county of San Francisco; and Tulsa County, Oklahoma, with $5 million in grant funding from MacArthur and technical assistance and coordination from the Urban Institute to create a plan to bring together government officials, nonprofit partners, and impacted community members to develop innovative approaches to this issue.

MacArthur has awarded $3.2 million in support of the work in the selected communities, and an additional $1.8 million will support the Urban Institute’s technical assistance work. At the completion of the planning process, each community will be eligible to implement its plan with a long-term loan from a pool of $15 million from MacArthur.

“Criminal justice reform cannot happen in a silo—it is pivotal to address adjacent issues that contribute to ongoing crises in the system,” said MacArthur Foundation director of criminal justice Laurie Garduque. “Tackling housing instability head-on is critical to decreasing the misuse and overuse of jails and systemic and structural racial inequities, and it is a much-needed step toward transforming the entire justice system. We look forward to working with community residents and system stakeholders in Charleston, Minnehaha County, San Francisco, and Tulsa to support innovation and create new models of housing that can lead to new models for reform.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/Renphoto)