By Rochisha Shukla, Will Engelhardt, Krista White, Sam Tecotzky

The Urban Institute’s Justice and Safety Division conducted a 22-month, mixed-methods evaluation of the Ready to Work (RTW) program operated by Bridge House, a nonprofit organization with the mission to “respect and empower people who are experiencing homelessness.” The program “combines three elements—paid work in a Ready to Work social enterprise, dormitory housing at a Ready to Work House, and case management support,” which RTW refers to as its “three-legged stool” approach. Using RTW programmatic data, administrative data from the Colorado Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) and the Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) on key outcomes, and data collected through stakeholder interviews, focus groups, program observations, and document reviews, Urban addressed the following objectives: (1) estimate the impact of program participation on housing, employment, and criminal justice outcomes; (2) identify the factors that appear to be associated with successful outcomes; (3) determine why and in what ways the program is able and/or unable to achieve its goals; (4) identify whether program activities have been implemented as intended; (5) calculate Ready to Work’s financial return on investment; and (6) recommend program improvements. Key Findings: The Overall Impact of the Program  Program graduates had a significantly lower likelihood of experiencing housing instability within 6 to 36 months after program completion compared with program dropouts and non-enrollees.  The impact of program completion on postprogram incarceration was not statistically significant; however, the results were in the expected direction, with program graduates showing a slightly lower rate of incarceration compared with the control groups across all follow-up periods.  Five percent of program graduates reported being employed at intake, and 64 percent reported having employment at or after program completion, a statistically significant increase. Additional analyses show that the odds of employment at or after program completion were lower among people who had been incarcerated.  The study also finds evidence of potential protective effects of the program, as participants who completed the program and who therefore engaged with it longer experienced improved housing stability and reduced incarceration compared with their matched controls during the program and immediately after completion. These effects may be associated with a sense of security or stability that comes with being enrolled in a structured program and early engagement with program services, like in-program housing and employment, mental health and substance use treatment, and vocational and educational assistance.  People who dropped out of the program showed consistently worse housing and incarceration outcomes compared with program graduates and non-enrollees. Descriptive statistics on pre-program factors and qualitative findings show that people who dropped out had significantly different needs than the other groups. Additionally, unmeasured effects, such as motivation to complete the program, could further explain the disparities between the groups.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2025. 77p.

By Steven Schmidt, Kristin Turney, & Angie Belen Monreal

Objective. We use the case of housing insecurity to examine how romantic partner incarceration results in increased and prolonged surveillance of women at home. Background. Romantic partner incarceration prompts surveillance from the criminal legal system while simultaneously eroding women's finances, health, and family relationships. Less is known about how these symbiotic harms of romantic partner incarceration enable surveillance beyond the criminal legal system. Method. We use longitudinal interviews with 35 (previously coresident) romantic partners of incarcerated men, showing how incarceration prompts unwanted moves for partners, how women manage housing insecurity following partner incarceration, and how they become embedded into living arrangements where they are monitored, evaluated, and controlled. Results. We identify three primary findings. First, women experiencing housing insecurity after romantic partner incarceration relied heavily on their social ties (and, to a lesser extent, institutional housing providers) while enduring stressful and prolonged housing searches. Second, the homes that women move into expose them to increased surveillance. Women encounter domestic, caregiving, romantic, and financial surveillance. Romantic partner incarceration prompts large changes in surveillance among women who left independent homes, moderate changes in surveillance among women who left comparatively desirable doubled-up homes, and prolonged surveillance among nonmovers. Finally, women respond to surveillance by monitoring burdens on hosts and reframing stays in shared homes as temporary. Conclusion. Taken together, these findings extend prior research on the symbiotic harms of romantic partner incarceration, how women attached to incarcerated men experience surveillance, and how doubled-up families sustain shared homes.

 Journal of Marriage and Family 86(2): 2024., 391–411 pages