Prison sentences are punishments for poor people. Around one fifth of incarcerated people were homeless prior to their incarceration, and nearly 30% of them will find themselves homeless upon their release. In their research, Juliette Baronnet and Tiphaine Vanlemmens describe prison as a “magnifying mirror for social inequality”. They note the disproportionately high number of the most disadvantaged social groups within the prison population.

For decades, numerous research studies have highlighted the vicious cycle of poverty and incarceration. Emmaüs France and Secours Catholique highlight, in a report from October 2021, that nearly 60% of people held in French prisons were below the poverty line, compared with a rate of 14% in the general population. People in prison also hold fewer diplomas than people outside of prison and have higher rates of mental disorders and/or addictions. In Finland, nearly 90% of people with criminal sanctions have mental health problems, and 94% suffer from problems relating to substance use disorders. In Ontario (Canada), 22% of people in prison were homeless at the time of incarceration. In England and Wales in 2021, 15% of the prison population had been homeless before entering detention.

Precarity is pervasive, but this is not a mathematical coincidence. It is closely linked to how the criminal justice system operates. Emmaüs France and Secours Catholique point out “the role of criminal justice in the process of criminalising extreme poverty”. The absence of housing or accommodation solutions represents an “aggravating factor” for people likely to be incarcerated, according to Juliette Baronnet and Tiphaine Vanlemmens. An unstable living situation can often become grounds for placement in remand detention, as judges consider people in this situation less likely to appear in court. In France, being homeless increases the risk of being placed in remand detention fivefold, report sociologists Jean-Noël Retière and Virginie Gautron.

 As such, many people alternate between periods of homelessness and time behind bars. Homeless people’s daily lives make them more likely to come into contact with the police and the justice system.

This is primarily because, as sociologist Laura Delcourt explains, they must commit legally objectionable acts in order to survive – to wash themselves, sleep, feed themselves, or move around. “For these people, prison is often seen as the logical next step in a series of hardships characterised by disengagement”, she explains. “These people make regular trips between prison, the shelter and the streets. In the beginning, the periods of incarceration are fairly short, and they alternate quickly. The prevalence of these short sentences doesn’t leave enough time to complete the necessary steps for requesting accommodation upon release.” Mia Juselius, of the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA), echoes this sentiment: “Most of the people leaving prison who are homeless on release were serving short-term sentences. They often leave prison without anywhere to go. Then another sentence is handed down, and they are reincarcerated, and it’s a vicious circle. When problems with drugs or alcohol, or both, are added on, they just go round in circles.”

The European Observatory on Homelessness indicates, in a report published in 2023, that in addition to penalising people for illegal activity committed in the absence of stable housing, criminal justice systems are also used to curb homelessness. They consider prosecution part of the response to people sleeping on the street, as is the case in the Netherlands. Homelessness can also drive people to turn to informal habitation solutions like squatting, which are criminalised in certain countries. In 2024, the Fondation Abbé Pierre is raising the alarm over bills being passed in France to establish “two-year prison sentences for squatters of abandoned buildings, without ever questioning the reasons that push people to turn to these last-resort solutions.”

Precarity leads to detention; prison leads to marginalisation. For people in highly vulnerable situations, release can lead to “toppling into social exclusion”. The report by Emmaüs and Secours Catholique highlights that although 45% of the people surveyed considered themselves to be living in poverty prior to incarceration, this percentage reached 70% following detention.

Few people hold onto their habitation during their incarceration. In many countries, it is technically possible to keep housing or accommodations in the event of a short sentence, but in practice it proves very difficult. In France, housing benefits can be maintained in some cases. However, this is not the case for other social rights, which are suspended. Active solidarity income, for example, is only awarded for two months. Added to this is a lack of resources from the loss of employment, making it hard to pay rent.

Finding somewhere to stay is a significant issue. In France, 69% of people surveyed by Emmaüs and Secours Catholique say they are considering temporary or uncertain housing solutions for after their release: 36% with family or friends and 7% in a shelter or other accommodation centre. Nearly 26% of people state that they have no accommodation solution planned for their release. These figures are similar in several other countries. Every month in England and Wales, around 600 people leaving prison find themselves on the street. In response, some of them are provided with tents and sleeping bags upon release. In Ontario (Canada), one third of people leaving correctional facilities are released with no fixed address, and 85% of people who were experiencing homelessness at the time of their incarceration expect to remain homeless after their release. The same is true in Finland: the number of people leaving prison into homelessness is increasing, even though the overall number of homeless people has been trending downwards for several decades. Nearly one third of incarcerated persons are released without a habitation solution.

These high figures only reflect the tip of the iceberg due to the absence of specific data. Prison services do not systematically record the number of people released who immediately become homeless.

“We do not know how many people go into shelters, for example”, explains Reza Ahmadi, Director of Research & Evaluation at the John Howard Society of Ontario (Canada). “This underestimation also stems from the fact that when the question is asked, people lie, thinking they will be released sooner if they have somewhere to go. In any event, the figures we have show that the situation is worsening and that more and more people find themselves caught between prison and the streets.”

Homelessness comes in many forms. The John Howard Society of Ontario points out that in addition to people sleeping on the street, there are also forms of “hidden homelessness”: sleeping a few nights at a relative’s house, couch surfing for a while at friends’ houses, or living in temporary or transitional housing. In these situations, the individuals do not have a permanent address, but their homelessness is considered invisible: hidden homelessness is not generally accounted for in the methods for calculating the number of homeless people.

In Finland, several civil society organisations are taking action to improve statistical methods on calculating homelessness, which are currently deemed incomplete. They are calling for indicators that take into account homeless people who do not use public services, as they are not currently included in statistics. Data relating to gender, age, personal status or even the duration of homelessness must be integrated to better understand the paths to homelessness: how much time passes between no longer having a home and/or leaving an institution and entering temporary housing? How much time does it take for someone to obtain permanent housing? What are the factors that led to the period of homelessness ending? This information is essential to these organisations because it enables them to implement relevant policies and measures.

Release marks the end of incarceration. However, in practice, leaving prison is an integral part of the punitive process, as pointed out by Gilles Chantraine and Laura Delcourt in their research. Release instead constitutes “an extension, rather than a termination, of the social sentence generated by imprisonment”, especially as the people with the greatest disadvantages are not often granted sentence reductions, and accommodation facilities that house prison leavers are limited. In addition, the uncertainty surrounding the exact release date restricts available options and further complicates access to housing solutions.

All of these difficulties put incarcerated persons in a bind that explains, in large part, why an approaching release is not always seen as a relief. Many of them mention feeling or having felt a great deal of anxiety as their release approached, in particular due to the absence of a habitation solution, uncertainties resulting from that situation, and fear of toppling into extreme hardship. The apprehension associated with release also stems from people not knowing their rights, or not being sufficiently familiar with them, their administrative situation not necessarily being in order and not having sufficient information relating to existing schemes that could provide support.

Charlotte Journiac, a social worker at the association Le MAS in Lyon (France), notes that release from prison is often a moment of great uncertainty for incarcerated people. “We often realise that they are much more afraid of their release from detention than of entering it”, she shares. “It’s really nerve-racking when there’s no solution.” Numerous facilities mention that this anxiety often translates into “coercion [towards] recidivism”, when trying to obtain housing or a place in an accommodation fails. This stands out in what Sam*¹, a formerly incarcerated person, told us: “I needed housing, not to find myself on the street at 53. I know that I could never become homeless because it goes against my moral philosophy and it’s not in my skill set. I’m a resourceful person. If it had come to it, I would have even gone back to prison. I wouldn’t have let myself die under a bridge.”

Having access to a roof is a significant factor in the fight against recidivism. In New Zealand, people who leave prison without stable housing are nearly five times more likely to be reincarcerated in the year following their release than those who have a habitation. In England and Wales, two thirds of people who leave detention without a housing solution are likely to reoffend within one year.

The absence of a habitation solution upon release results in significant social and financial costs. Numerous civil society organisations highlight the potential savings that could be generated by providing access to places to stay for people leaving prison. In Finland, the savings are valued at €10,000 to €15,000 per person per year. The findings in England and Wales are similar. The Ministry of Justice asserts that stable housing can reduce recidivism by up to 50%, thus saving several tens of thousands of pounds each year.

In terms of accessing habitation solutions, the specific challenges met by people leaving prison fall within a context that goes far beyond the carceral issue. It is increasingly difficult to find housing, even for people with employment and a stable situation. Everywhere, housing prices are skyrocketing, and salaries cannot keep up. In Ontario (Canada), rent prices have climbed 2.3% per year over the past ten years, compared to 0.4% for salaries between 2000 and 2013. In Dublin (Ireland), rent increased by 90% between 2012 and 2022. In France, between 2000 and 2022, housing prices rose by 160% – three to four times faster than average income. Housing is becoming unaffordable, and the housing crisis has become the norm.

 Numerous people emphasise that the problem has more to do with the affordability of housing than the lack of availability. Reza Ahmadi of the John Howard Society of Ontario notes that “the housing options being built now are big apartments or family homes. What we need are small, more affordable housing options. As it is, everyone in need has to fight one another for these spaces.” This context makes accessing social housing extremely complicated.

The same holds true regarding emergency accommodation schemes: the number of people on the street is rising exponentially. In France, the Fondation Abbé Pierre estimates that of the 1,098,000 people without personal housing, nearly 330,000 are homeless. Some live in group accommodations, in hotels, in makeshift shelters, or on the streets. The Fondation is concerned by the record congestion of the emergency call number 115: in November 2023, nearly 8,000 people, including 2,400 minors, were turned away every night due to a lack of emergency accommodation spaces. In autumn 2023 in France, several mayors of major cities announced a plan to sue the government over the thin provisioning of its action in favour of homeless people. They alerted the French government of the practical difficulties of overcoming insufficient state resources dedicated to the emergency accommodation system.

Additionally, the Social Union for Habitation (Union sociale pour l’habitat) notes that nearly 2.4 million households are currently waiting for social housing, i.e. 162,000 more than in 2021. For the Union, this figure is cause for concern, because social housing providers only grant an average of 400,000 allocations per year – even less in 2023. The average timeframe for obtaining housing is lengthening, by 20 to 30%, depending on the area. In Stockholm and Toronto, the wait time for social housing is ten years, and in Amsterdam that wait can stretch to 13 years.

Access to habitation for disadvantaged people leaving prison is especially concerning in this context, as Reza Ahmadi explains when describing the situation in Canada: ”When the housing supply is so limited, it is much harder for people on the margins of society, such as those leaving prison, to obtain housing. Demand is nearly 500% higher than supply. Imagine a person in conflict with the law in this situation.”

Several of the people interviewed by Prison Insider hinted that the current housing crisis creates fierce competition between various groups of people in need. This complicates housing acquisition for associations who want to offer habitation solutions.

Marine Tocco is Head of the Justice and Social Cohesion division at Les Foyers Matter, an association based in Lyon (France) that accommodates, in particular, people leaving prison as part of sentence adjustments. She describes the difficulties faced by the association in expanding its offerings: “We try to increase rental housing stock in a thousand different ways: property provisions, a collaboration with a cooperative that organises life annuity sales, etc.” A large part of her work involves increasing stock. If not for these difficulties in accessing housing, Les Foyers Matter would be able to accommodate many more people as part of their sentence reductions.

Property is not the only consideration that must be taken into account when offering habitation solutions to people who have just been released from prison. Some options are not worthwhile, Marine Tocco explains: “We are careful to avoid certain neighbourhoods and places on the ground floor with bars. We ensure that the housing is as accessible as possible.” Options are all the more limited because most recent constructions are located far from city centres. “They are not viable solutions for the people we work with because the vast majority of social services and mental health services that many formerly incarcerated people need are located in city centres”, explains Reza Ahmadi.

Pierre Mercier, Director of the association Le MAS (Lyon, France), stresses the current impossibility of finding somewhere to live, whether in social housing or elsewhere. He highlights the necessity of urgently acknowledging this serious crisis. “People with salaried positions, who are not leaving prison, who are not foreign nationals, can no longer find housing. So of course, obtaining housing for people who are leaving prison is a particularly complicated matter, because they are among the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. They represent various concerns that society does not want to consider: they are primarily men, young men specifically, with potentially high-risk behaviour or mental disorders. Our current society is merit-based, so it can seem difficult in times of scarcity to grant housing to people who have behaved badly. Consequently, prison sentences do not end once they have been served: they continue afterwards. The sorting of ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ occurs whether priority lists have been drawn up or not.”