This story is part of Ideastream Public Media’s “Sound of Us” series covering housing and advocacy in Canton, produced in partnership with Canton for All People. Learn more at ideastream.org/soundofus.
Hundreds of people are about to gather in a large wood-paneled ballroom in a Cleveland suburb on a sunny Saturday morning.
They’re arriving from across the state to learn about the legal obstacles that keep formerly incarcerated people from succeeding when re-entering society.
Shauntae Metcalf of Canton is one of the speakers. She was formerly incarcerated herself for a kidnapping and abduction charge back in 2015. When she was released from prison seven years ago, she wanted to start her life again — and her biggest challenge was finding secure housing.
“The system is rigged,” Metcalf says. “I hate to say it, but it's the reality of it, the hurdles you have to endure after coming home from incarceration.”
Metcalf says the obstacles also undermine people's will to change. Research from the National Institute of Health shows that housing insecurity is associated with an increased risk of recidivism — where formerly incarcerated individuals engage in repeated criminal behavior. Metcalf says without options, people often return to crime as an answer.
“You ask yourself, ‘Why should I be doing this? No one's gonna give me an opportunity. I might as well go back to the old person that I once was,” Metcalf says.
Finding secure housing after incarceration
Nearly 1.5 million individuals are released from state and federal prison each year, according to the Department of Housing and Human Services.
Former prisoners can have a hard time obtaining private housing from landlords, and can be legally denied public or subsidized housing for specific types of sex and drug-related crimes. These restrictions often lead to homelessness among the formerly incarcerated.
According to The Prison Policy Initiative, people who have been to prison once experience homelessness at a rate seven times higher than the general public. The rate is thirteen times higher for people incarcerated more than once.
Property managers are often not confident that formerly incarcerated people can be relied on to pay their rent, says Deborah Collins of the Ohio Real Estate Investors Association.
“We look past payment history, we look at past employment history, we look past eviction history to try and predict the future behaviors,” Collins says. “So as a re-entry citizen, you don't have much of a history to be able to be qualified because of where you were in the past.”
Landlords often worry they may be liable if ex-prisoners get into an altercation with another resident, Collins says.
But that could be changing, says Collins. A state law went into effect last year that helps protect landlords from liability. It also allows formerly incarcerated people to apply for a certificate where the state vouches for them as trustworthy to pay their rent.
Providing safe housing solutions
After securing her own housing, Metcalf established a nonprofit, Choosing to Change, which provides halfway housing for people recently released from prison, peer-to-peer support groups, mentoring and food pantries at nine different locations in Canton. Metcalf says affordable, safe housing is a necessary foundation to prevent recidivism.
“I believe personally a lot of the re-mistakes come from us being dropped off in the same neighborhoods that our crime took place with the same people and the same lifestyle,” Metcalf says.
This kind of work by individuals is necessary to change the criminal justice system, says former Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, who also spoke at the conference.
“I always say that if you rely on the system to do right because it's the right thing to do, you're foolish because it ain't going to happen, unless you have the power to make it happen. And if you don't have that power, then you have to go back to individuals,” Jackson said.
Early in the conference, Metcalf takes the stage and offers a prayer to help inspire attendees. Metcalf says her faith has motivated her to help others for years.
“I can remember being in prison and God said saying to me, 'You have a choice,'" Metcalf recalls. "'You can continue to be in trouble, or you allow me to give you purpose.' And so, I found my purpose and my purpose is the reentry community.”
Metcalf says she wants to expand her work over the next decade by providing halfway houses, mentoring and peer support not only in Canton, but across the state and even nationally.
