Program offers help to released prisoners and saves taxpayers money

Shawn Carmack once stole a farm tractor, barely missing a police officer who said he had to steer out of the way as Carmack headed for a field, then got the rig stuck in Ahtanum Creek.

He outran the cops that time, but not for long. He was soon back behind bars and headed for state prison.

Those were the days when he “stole a lot of stuff,” as he told a probation officer, in support of a drug habit.

Now, Carmack says he’s doing much better, thanks in part to a state program that pays for housing recently released offenders.

“I would have come out of prison basically homeless, without a place to stay,” Carmack said in a recent interview.

Instead, Carmack landed a bed at a clean-and-sober house in Yakima. Within a couple months, he had found a job at a local manufacturing facility and was able to start paying his own rent. His time on the voucher program – which provides up to $1,500 over a maximum of three months – ended in December.

While it may be seem antithetical, the state Department of Corrections says this is one time where spending money saves money for the taxpayer.

Looking for help with a budget crunch, the Corrections Department started the program in 2009, following approval by the state Legislature.

A study by Washington State University suggests the program saves the state at least $7 and as much as $9 for every dollar spent. That’s because keeping someone behind bars requires paying for a host of expenses from guards to food, medical care and more, adding up to hundreds of dollars per day per prisoner.

Under state law, most prisoners have a chance to cut time off their sentence by complying with prison rules. But in order to qualify for early release, they have to have a verified address deemed suitable by their probation officer. If not, the state may hold them for their entire sentence.

Effectively tossing them on the street increases the risk they will soon be back in a cell.

“There’s definitely a correlation between not having housing and incarceration,” Bob Story, the DOC’s manager of the voucher program, said.

The WSU study indicated that inmates on the voucher program committed slightly fewer new crimes but the biggest benefit was the cost reduction.

Somewhat conversely, the study indicated that the voucher clients committed somewhat more probation violations, but that’s an expected result because they are under closer supervision and easier to find.

Story says the program tends to benefit offenders who would otherwise struggle even more upon release.

“The folks who are typically clients for this program are leaving with the shirts on their backs,” Story said.

The annual budget to cover vouchers is about $1.6 million. According to department data, the number of voucher payments has stayed relatively steady over the past three full fiscal years: 3,563 in 2013, 3,641 in 2014, 3,627 in 2015. Through late January, 2,352 payments had been made in fiscal 2016.

About 600 landlords and property managers across the state have agreed to accept the vouchers, including about 30 in the Yakima area.

They’re not state contractors; they only agree to consider referrals for voucher recipients. Some don’t accept sex offenders because of their locations, for example.

One Western Washington provider, House of Mercy, recently expanded to the Yakima area, offering a six-bed house that is open to voucher recipients.

James Valela, pastor for the prison ministry, said House of Mercy has offered an offender housing program for more than a decade after seeing the need.

Many landlords don’t want to rent to a recently released prisoner or someone with a criminal background.

That leads offenders toward the same people and places that put them in prison: “You find yourself back in the same environment you were when in when you got in to trouble,” Valela said.

He said the 90-day funding period envisioned by the state seems long enough for most offenders to start to stabilize themselves – finding a job, saving enough money to begin paying their own housing costs.

House of Mercy works with the offenders to increase the chance of success. Staff members give them rides to appointments with their probation officers, or help them find placements with felon-friendly labor agencies.

Just having a house – a phone, a mailbox – makes the job search easier.

“Usually once they get a taste of success, you see their hopes begin to rise,” Valela said.

Although he did not have exact figures, Valela estimated that less than 3 percent of his clients commit new crimes. Drug and alcohol relapses are higher, but House of Mercy offers structure and faith-based help intended to help offenders address those issues, Valela said.

“What we are doing is helping men build a new foundation on which to build their life,” Valela said.

Carmack, though in a different clean-and-sober program, said he has appreciated many of the same benefits described by Valela.

“I wanted to find a place that would hold me accountable, and be around a bunch of people that were clean and sober and wanting to change their lives,” he said.

He said living at the clean-and-sober house will give him a chance to get his life straight before he moves out on his own. He acknowledges “many years of bad choices,” compounded by drug addiction, brought him here.

The voucher program, he says, got him off to a better start than what might have happened without it.

“It’s all your choices,” he said. “If you’re just looking for a couple months free rent, that’s all it’s going to be. But if you use it to change your life, it’s really going to help you.”