John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight
SIOUX FALLS – South Dakota’s largest county by population will spend another $640,000 to address housing challenges for people who’ve spent time behind bars.
The Minnehaha County Commission cast a unanimous vote Tuesday to allow its Human Services Department to accept and spend the grant funds from the MacArthur Foundation. The foundation supports a range of criminal justice reform-related activities across the U.S. In South Dakota, MacArthur money has been used to help pay for juvenile and adult diversion programs and reduce jail populations in both Minnehaha and Pennington counties.
Minnehaha County’s Human Services Department is spearheading the housing work, called “Just Home,” which is one of five such MacArthur-funded projects in the U.S. The others are in Tulsa, Oklahoma, San Francisco and Charleston, South Carolina.
The goal is to “address the housing challenges we have for individuals and their families who’ve been involved in the criminal justice system,” Minnehaha County Supportive Services Manager Brett Johnson told commissioners on Tuesday.
People with a criminal record are more likely to be passed over for jobs and housing, and sometimes face restrictions on community services. But a lack of employment, housing and services are factors that can increase a person’s chances of reoffending.
About two years ago, the county collected $90,200 in grant funding to begin studying how it would administer the Just Home program.
“These are all grant monies,” Johnson told commissioners. “There is no obligation from the county to provide any match funds or any funds out of our general fund budget to provide any of this additional funding related to this project.”
The Just Home project has already secured other funding, including $4 million in low-interest loans to help build 51 additional apartment units for the Glory House, a halfway house for those recently released from incarceration.
The new grant funding will be spread across multiple areas, and is largely related to case management.
Partners also include the St. Francis House, which will purchase 10 apartment units in central Sioux Falls, South Dakota Urban Indian Health, which will offer culturally appropriate courses and case management for Native Americans, and the Helpline Center, which offers referrals to community services. Augustana University and the University of South Dakota will work to structure and implement the project and study outcomes.
Commissioner Jean Bender wanted to know if the purchase of apartments for Just Home would displace people currently living in Copper Arms, the 10-unit property targeted for purchase by the St. Francis House.
“They have some vacant units already in the building, but through the process of them purchasing that, we’re not going to displace anybody that’s already there,” Johnson said.
Johnson told Commissioner Joe Kippley that the universities’ research will help the county understand the impact of the funding on ex-inmate employment, repeat offenses and the disproportionate representation of Native Americans in the justice system.
“Certainly the biggest ones, we want to see a reduction in homelessness and incarceration as well as connection to other services that currently exist,” Johnson said.
In addition to the subcontracts with nonprofits, the funding will be used to offer incentives to landlords who might otherwise reject felons who apply for housing, as well as for the future Just Home participants who’d be their tenants.
Johnson told South Dakota Searchlight that those incentives could take the form of payments for renter’s insurance, for example, or an agreement to cover post move-out damages if necessary.
“We want to be good stewards of their units,” Johnson said.