The disconnect between the timing of the justice system and the timing of accommodations is frequently pointed to as a problem. Marie-Pierre Noret works in Lyon (France) on the Passage programme at Le MAS. She explains that delays can jeopardise housing solutions, when one has been found, as well as the person’s support arrangements. And sometimes the reverse is true: “We think we have several months to find accommodations for someone, and then they’re released much sooner than expected, sometimes with just two weeks’ notice, due to a sentence reduction. That can be just as disruptive.” A study published in 2017 by France’s Interministerial Delegation for Accommodation and Housing Access (Délégation interministérielle à l’hébergement et à l’accès au logement, DIHAL) mentions similar occurrences across the country. The Delegation states that “these unknowns regarding timing are a frequent source of issues.” It notes that housing or accommodation spots are often lost when the release date changes. Given the long queues due to difficulties in the housing market, and because accommodation facilities often receive state subsidies by day and by person supported, it is difficult for them to leave a spot vacant until the person arrives, especially when the exact date is uncertain.

The Delegation emphasises that these limitations can result in releases without a habitation solution or the possibility of a sentence adjustment being jeopardised. Sylvie Daniel, Department Manager at Le MAS, adds: “Overnight, the person finds themself outside, with their bags, sometimes on the street. It’s incredibly challenging to line up a person’s needs with an offer at the exact time of their release. We are more successful when the person is in a semi-custodial regime, for example, because we have more time to prepare. But even then, sentence reduction credits are sometimes applied without our knowledge. Or the opposite happens: the person has a disciplinary problem, they’re penalised and everything is delayed. Management is complicated across the board. And yet we are badgered to make sure each and every one of the spots we have are filled. We can say that a spot is set aside for someone in particular, but we never really know when they’ll arrive. There are a lot of mental gymnastics required, which are much more complicated for people leaving detention than for most other populations.”

 Several accommodation facilities also mention the risk of repeated reincarcerations for certain people and the difficulty of providing support and assistance in this situation. “Many people want their lives to change, but they still have numerous sentences left to serve”, observes Sylvie Daniel. “From one day to the next, we won’t see them anymore because they’re back in detention. It’s discouraging for them and for us. It would be better to serve everything all at once and then start laying foundations for the long term, rather than doing bits and pieces.”

Release from prison can be a real shock to the system. This is especially true when the person is left to fend for themself, with no medium- or even short-term habitation solution. Marie-Pierre Noret mentions that many people have told her about the brutality of their release, which for some occurred without advance notice. With no solution in place, some people “opt” to refuse sentence reductions and remain in detention.

The brutality of release can prove particularly jarring for people who are released at the end of the week, a frequent practice in many countries. Being released on a Friday often means the person is unable to access any form of support and assistance services, which are typically closed or only open in a limited capacity at the weekend. This adds additional stress to a transition that is already difficult, causing anxiety and vulnerability to skyrocket. Some prison services have consequently amended their statutory and regulatory frameworks in recent years to avoid “the weekend effect”. In England and Wales, prison leavers whose release date falls on a Friday or the day before a bank or public holiday can now be released up to two days earlier. This helps ensure they have time to access essential services for housing or accommodation, medical assistance and job support.

In Finland, the housing support network for released persons (VAT) points out in its handbook on housing support for those with a criminal background that the period following release from prison is a particularly difficult time and can sometimes be decisive for the person’s future. Several schemes have been developed to facilitate this phase. Some organisations try to make arrangements so the person is picked up directly at the door of the prison and driven to the provided housing. The release time can be negotiated with the prison by the accommodation facility. Volunteers from organisations may also make the trip to pick up the person, especially when the prison is far, or greet them upon arrival at the train or bus station.

A released person’s ability to access their rights is often dependent on accommodation facilities and social rehabilitation centres, especially in cases of release without support. Researchers Juliette Baronnet and Tiphaine Vanlemmens note the role of these facilities in establishing residency, ensuring care during the day or providing accommodations.

 Support proves vital whenever people risk experiencing homelessness upon their release from prison. When nothing, or virtually nothing, has been done in detention, everything must be started once outside, and quickly: updating papers, filling out urgent or regular applications, even just for a spot in a shelter.

Jane Abad-Martinez and Razika Bizriche work for the Local Committee for the Independent Housing of Young People (Comité Local pour le Logement Autonome des Jeunes, CLLAJ) in Lyon (France). Every day, they interact with young people leaving prison without prospects. They spoke about their powerlessness in many situations, despite their best efforts to find emergency responses. “Most of the time, there is no solution while waiting. They end up homeless”, they explain. “They wander in the street or sleep at an acquaintance’s place. After a while, they’ve gone through their entire contact list, which was not necessarily extensive to begin with. Then there’s no one left.”

The official procedures move slowly, despite the urgency of situations involving homelessness. Sophie Roussel, from the association RLibre in Lille, described how brutal this can be: “All day long, we see people coming undone in front of us, because they don’t know where they’ll sleep. They come into our offices all dirty because they spent another night sleeping on a bench. We tell them about things to fill out on a screen, information they have to provide. It’s totally dehumanising.”

The wait for housing is also long for people who were able to prepare for their release from detention, due to market saturation. The team of the Passage programme at Le MAS say it’s impossible to “fill the gap between the release from detention and arrival in an accommodation”. Participants in the programme often resort to temporary accommodations, with friends and family or in a shelter. Charlotte Journiac of the Passage programme noted that the waiting period can send some people into a tailspin if they cannot find a solution and end up on the street. This can put them at risk of returning to prison. The wait can also make it significantly harder to comply with legal obligations. “Some people have options, but that could mean living with relatives, somewhere they aren’t allowed to go because of geographical restrictions. We warn them that they could be arrested in the event of an inspection. They say that they don’t have anywhere else to go, that they need to shower before work, simple things like that. What are we supposed to say? There’s no magical alternative.”

 Emergency and/or temporary solutions offered to people leaving prison are often poorly adapted and can be perceived as a continuation of detention: forced to live with others, bars on the windows, the feeling of being under surveillance, etc. Michelle*¹, a formerly incarcerated person who participated in the Passage programme, explained that the shelter where she stayed before finding housing reminded her of prison. Sam* said that he refused to stay in a shelter because it felt like being locked back up in a cell.

Now outside the shelter, Michelle says that the wait and shelters cast a shadow over her release. Everything took a long time, even though she had completed certain steps beforehand, including filling out the application for her single registration number, which is required for social housing. It took two and a half years after submitting her application for Michelle to obtain permanent housing. “What was missing [during my release] was the ability to obtain definitive housing more quickly. I spent a long time in a shelter, and that’s not ideal: the buildings and the other people weren’t very clean, the smell of the neighbouring [accommodations] came through the doors. We had cockroaches after a neighbour passed away and wasn’t found for a week. […] I was really losing hope of finding a place.”

Michelle also mentioned the string of “small disappointments” from the fact that the accommodations she applied for were never allocated to her: “These little things one after the other brought me down.” For the team of the Passage programme at Le MAS, it is not unusual to see people who are stuck waiting “deteriorate, physically and mentally, as the months go by”. Team members attempt to encourage patience, be welcoming, be good listeners and, as the wait stretches on, make progress on other administrative procedures. This atmosphere of anxiety weighs on people and can push them to accept anything, too quickly, for fear of seeing homelessness stretch on indefinitely.

The search for a long-term solution takes time. It depends on the evaluation carried out to find a habitation that best addresses the person’s needs and requests, as well as the judicial constraints imposed on them, such as geographical restrictions or treatment orders. Sylvie Daniel says that it is vitally important to have thorough knowledge of the person’s file in order to provide the right solution. “You have to keep in mind proximity to family, if they have one, to work, to care settings and so on”, she adds. “Some people have received treatment at one particular facility for a long time, or they already went there before detention. Whenever possible, treatment should continue in the same location. That is a factor of stability.”

 Sylvie Daniel notes the importance of explaining to people receiving assistance the reasoning behind certain questions, describing the process in detail and presenting challenges realistically. This is especially important since many of them have trouble expressing their needs in terms of location, neighbourhood, access to public transport, etc.

It is often only after the initial steps have been taken that people realise they do not want to live in certain neighbourhoods or what requirements they have in relation to transport and work. Given the time lost in such situations, for the beneficiaries and for the team at Le MAS, the team is considering starting the discussion about needs with a map to better focus and guide the request.

Addressing people’s needs also means identifying the form of habitation that they want and that would best suit them: a one-person apartment, community housing, or something else. There is a consensus on the need for presenting a variety of habitation possibilities. “You need a bit of everything. You have to be able to adapt, to have a range of solutions”, explains Sylvie Daniel. “People have incredibly diverse needs and expectations. When they are released, some people are tired of living with others. Then there are other people who tell us that they’re terrified by the idea of living alone and they need to spend some transitional time in an institution. We need to reinforce training on filling in the gaps in the evaluation process and being able to offer a wide range of options. We have to know how to listen to differing needs and account for them.”

In terms of temporary support and accommodation, the number of available spots and the type of support offered vary considerably from one region to another and from one country to another. Some programmes cater specifically to people with criminal records, while others also accommodate other populations. All are intended to be transitional, only lasting for as long as it takes the accommodated person to receive the support necessary to access more permanent housing. The person typically enters into a contract with the facility for a limited period of support. In many cases, the contract can be renewed. However, certain programmes have a tendency to conflate accommodation and housing, as highlighted in the 2024 report from the European Observatory on Homelessness.

In France, people released from detention can stay in homeless shelters with a social rehabilitation element (centres d’hébergement et de réinsertion sociale, CHRS). One such shelter is Centre Feydel Liotard in Lyon, run by the association Le MAS. Among the people it accommodates are those leaving prison and receiving support from the integrated reception and guidance service (service intégré d’accueil et d’orientation, SIAO) as well as people supported by the prison service for rehabilitation and probation (SPIP) as part of a sentence adjustment for a period of over six months. At the centre, habitants live communally. Marielle Colombin and Julianne Legrand, who work at the centre, stress that although this type of habitation can work very well, it has to be in line with the person’s needs. “The group and the community often see this period as a form of restoration”, they explain. “Some people arrive extremely damaged. Here, they can re-establish themselves, recuperate and figure out other habitation possibilities where they could have more autonomy.” The time they spend at the centre can be as long or as short as they need.

Some people choose to then go to a boarding house(pension de famille), an option that often involves a waiting period of “months or even years, depending on the location and the spots that open up or are freed up”, say Marielle Colombin and Julianne Legrand. “Some people are ready to leave the centre but have to wait a long time for a spot. Demand is high because the scheme provides small independent housing with community spaces, which is a good compromise for people who worry about feeling isolated.” However, the team points out that given the timeframes, it is often more realistic to look for autonomous and independent housing.

The CLLAJ’s Lyon-based programme of 13 temporary housing units offers young people leaving detention an interesting alternative, according to Jane Abad-Martinez and Razika Bizriche, two of the association’s employees. The temporary housing benefit (ALT) replaces other rights, such as housing benefits, which have stricter requirements and longer waiting times. They note that the people they host, young people aged 25 and under, face many challenges, especially administrative ones. They have no financial resources and very quickly find themselves in dire financial straits.

 “This scheme allows young people to take a beat and come up with a plan with us”, they explain. “In addition to the housing search and administrative monitoring, our support helps reassure these young people and helps them see social work and institutions in a different light, restoring a little bit of their hope. We help them deal with the wait, administrative complications, etc.”

They highlight that people who receive support are reluctant to let go of this anchor: “Once they are up to date administratively and are given the green light, we sometimes feel they become a little more hesitant. It’s probably reassuring for them to have this temporary housing and support system.”

In recent years in England and Wales, the Ministry of Justice has developed accommodation programmes for people released from prison without shelter. The Community Accommodation Service - Tier 3 (CAS-3) scheme provides up to 84 nights of temporary accommodation. According to figures from the Ministry of Justice, 5,796 people were assisted by the scheme between July 2021 and March 2023. However, many incarcerated people only learn a day or two before their release from prison if they will be able to join the programme. The temporary accommodations may also be located in an unfamiliar area, which could present a significant obstacle as they move forward.

In Quebec (Canada), the John Howard Society offers “CHEZ NOUS”, an accommodation support service for people who have been in conflict with the law. Beneficiaries each have their own furnished studio that they occupy alone. They can stay there for three months free of charge. If they have a job, they must contribute 25% of their revenue as soon as they are admitted. A percentage of their revenue is then systematically requested after the fourth month. Beneficiaries are supported in various areas: in their search for stable housing or in the orientation towards facilities able to offer them habitation that meets their needs, in the job search or the search for training as well as in their day-to-day efforts to establish and manage a budget.

 The level of assistance depends on each person, ranging from very independent people to those who require step-by-step guidance for various administrative procedures. The people who receive support typically find their own housing in the three to six months following their release from detention.

Financial assistance programmes can also help lend a helping hand to people leaving detention without an income. The John Howard Society of Quebec cited the rent supplement programme, which was implemented with the Montreal local housing office (Office municipal d’habitation de Montréal, OMHM) for a three-year period. Participants in this scheme contribute a percentage of their revenue, and the OMHM finances the remainder of the rent. The property owner must give their approval, and the association says this is often the sticking point: “It’s pretty challenging to find landlords who accept, because the programme prevents them from increasing the rent whenever they want. But we have certain arguments in our favour: for example, they know they’ll receive their money, since the government is helping pay.”

In France, access to habitations can have longer-term implications, particularly through Housing First programmes, which aim to combat homelessness and support integration by giving direct access to housing. In this context, finding housing is considered the essential first step in supporting people, as it enables them to take further action (treatment, work, etc.) according to their needs. This perspective differs from one in which the journey to housing is a process that includes various periods in social accommodation facilities before the person finds permanent housing.

In the Lyon metropolitan area, for example, several facilities offer Housing First programmes, including the Passage programme run by the association Le MAS. Marie-Pierre Noret summarises its objectives: “Passage aims to ensure, as much as possible, immediate access to housing upon release from detention; to enable, in particular through personalised support, participants to embrace their housing; and to promote their re-integration, by working on access to legal services, employment, health care, etc. We support them in their administrative procedures and help them build up their confidence and self-esteem.” To participate in the programme, applicants must be up-to-date administratively (identity papers and last two tax assessments), have stable revenue (a salary or benefits), be able to live in independent housing, and fully accept social support.

 The Passage team generally meets people when they are in semi-custodial facilities. Once an application has been accepted, the programme starts searching for housing, according to the person’s wish list, which can take up to six months. Once the housing has been found and the relevant application accepted, the person signs a direct lease and continues to receive personalised support from the team.

At the end of the support period, all the relevant parties (the person who received support, team, partners, etc.) acknowledge the person’s departure from the programme. Marie-Pierre Noret considers this step essential, as it provides an opportunity to put into words the person’s journey and highlight their efforts. Accordingly, she feels Housing First programmes are fully suited to people leaving detention, because after several years of their opinions not mattering, these programmes allow these individuals to make decisions, including how long the period of support should last.

Finland is a forerunner in the implementation of “housing first” policies. The European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (FEANTSA) states that traditional temporary accommodations such as homeless shelters have almost completely disappeared from the country. The existing buildings were converted into group housing units where residents sign permanent rental agreements without end dates. In 2021, each unit had 16 to 125 flats, and all the units were located near public transport. The smaller units enable occupants to form more closely-knit communities, while the larger units provide a quick solution to the prolonged issue of homelessness. This unit-based system is sometimes criticised.

 Mia Juselius, who specialises in accommodations for people leaving prison at Life Without Crime (RETS), mentions that some prison leavers refuse to join these units for fear of being stigmatised due to associations with people experiencing extreme hardship. These units are nevertheless presented as a solution to the tense housing market situation, especially in Helsinki.

In addition to the community housing units, a series of governmental programmes significantly increased the number of scattered accommodations. Life Without Crime (RETS) has 63 flats in Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa, intended for people leaving prison without a place to stay who accept the support provided by the programme. “The lease is in the person’s name, just like for any other tenant”, says Leena Oikarinen, who works at RETS. “The leases are short-term, and the tenants commit to accepting our support, in terms of housing but also in other areas.”

Reza Ahmadi, Director of Research & Evaluation at the John Howard Society of Ontario (Canada), notes that a Housing First programme was developed by the organisation in Ottawa and was highly successful. He says that it was absolutely necessary to have an appropriate funding strategy to make this exceptional type of model viable. “These programmes require fairly significant funding, compared to halfway houses”, he explains. “In halfway houses, people stay for a limited time and are encouraged to become stable, be independent and leave. The ‘housing first’ model is very different: yes, housing is provided, but so are various services, depending on the person’s needs.” Reza Ahmadi regrets the absence of large-scale investment to systematise the model, meaning that only pilot projects and inconsistent initiatives have been put into place. “The government has made no commitments in this area, and there have been no major investments, even though a return to prison has a higher cost to society”, he says.

At the very least, solutions and systems exist. But everyone we met agrees that they are far from being sufficient for the number of individuals in need. As waiting lists continue to grow unrelentingly, so does the number of unanswered requests. In such a tense situation, can we still say these people have choices?

Charlotte Journiac, from the Passage programme at Le MAS (France), notes that some people are so distressed that they are ready to accept nearly anything, even against their own best interests. “We have to tell them again and again that they are allowed to say no, that they are free to do so and that we will work with them to find a better solution, another place to stay.” Marie-Pierre Noret observes that this can lead to social, professional, health and legal risks, which can make people’s lives difficult very quickly. Reza Ahmadi, in Canada, echoed this sentiment: “Because of the availability problem, people are so desperate that they take whatever is available, without accounting for their needs. That’s often a gateway to failure.”

For Jane Abad-Martinez and Razika Bizriche at the CLLAJ (France), the housing shortage and the scarcity of appropriate solutions lead to poor guidance, which can be harmful for the people receiving it. “People are sent to us who really need support and a constant presence, who we are not able to accommodate at the CLLAJ”, they explain. “In the absence of another solution, they are sent to us anyway, and their needs are downplayed. The wrong solution seems preferable to no solution: living on the street. We give it a shot, but trying is also a huge risk for the person. As social workers, we have to be the ones to say no. We don’t want to accept resorting to bad solutions anymore. We want to send a message to the government to demand that programmes be developed.”

The number of people incarcerated, and subsequently released, is on the rise in many countries. Funding tends to go the opposite direction. “Funding is decreasing while incredibly vulnerable people are being sent to us increasingly often”, observe Jane Abad-Martinez and Razika Bizriche. “It’s totally disproportionate. How are we supposed to keep taking on requests and addressing them properly?”

In Finland, a recent change in the government’s political affiliations also meant changes to national policies for combatting homelessness. Civil society is taking action against the government’s plan to reduce public subsidies to organisations that provide services and support to homeless people, a significant percentage of whom were previously imprisoned. The organisations remind the authorities that reducing these subsidies will only generate short-term savings, but costs will increase over time. They note that without early and accessible support, the need for public services increases as people’s difficulties intensify.

Reducing funding also means giving free rein to competition between facilities and between populations. The stakeholders for housing in Finland openly criticise competition in the context of multi-faceted crises: “The trend has become such that you have to be present, steal someone else’s idea and sit at the right tables to get money to run the operation”, they say. “We do not want this unfair competition to continue. We want the relevant parties to throw their efforts into the same bonfire, blow on a coal and for homeless people to gather around and warm themselves up. This is only possible if everyone cooperates fairly and the money is distributed fairly.”

 Jane Abad-Martinez and Razika Bizriche condemn financing approaches that rely on calls for projects as well as mandatory topics and target populations. “It forces us to handle each case separately, and to create a hierarchy ranking people’s situations, when they all have tremendous needs, just to try to fit them into our programmes”, they explain.

“Many of the young people we help don’t fit into any of the current priority categories. Or we’ve reached the maximum number of support cases. But we can’t say to them, ‘Sorry, your case isn’t a priority’, so we try to make them fit into certain boxes at all costs. The mental logistics behind it are outrageous.”

 For many stakeholders, this forced competition reflects a lack of recognition for the work they do. Many mention the fatigue this causes within facilities, leading to departures and unfilled positions.

“It’s a highly paradoxical dynamic: much more control from financial backers, much more arbitration, but more and more requirements”, says Jane Abad-Martinez. “All this hurts the field and, in the end, employees leave associations because they are exhausted.”

In Canada, the John Howard Society of Ontario and of Quebec mention the staffing problems they face, which increase the waiting times for people in need. Reza Ahmadi regrets the consequences of associations’ lack of appeal: “A large part of our staff left to work for other institutions or for the government, which offers better salaries. We have trouble filling vacancies, we are short-staffed by 25%, because we cannot be competitive. Turnover is enormous, we spend a ton of time training and recruiting, and the staff members who do stay are underpaid and overworked.”