Prisons Director Dora Schriro said her department will have an easier time getting paroled inmates into housing with a new law that passed in June.
“Homelessness is a challenge for us,” said Schriro, who heads the Arizona Department of Corrections, said in an Aug. 16 interview.
She added: “Many of these inmates have burned bridges with their families, and so it’s harder for them to get started when they’re released if they don’t have a home base or some other person in the community that they can count on.”
To help prisoners after they’re released on parole, the new legislation (H2298) lets the agency get directly involved in providing housing assistance, Schriro says.
The law takes effect Sept. 19.
In addition, Schriro says keeping newly released prisoners off the streets requires job training and education.
Toward that end, she said, the Corrections Department has 61 job training programs. It also has increased the number of prisoners getting general equivalency diplomas, or GEDs, she added.
Some 3,700 GEDs were awarded to inmates this past fiscal year, she said.
“We make up a quarter of all GEDs that were awarded throughout the state of Arizona,” Schriro added.
Some inmates however, are released and end up at places like Central Arizona Shelter Services (CASS), which provides emergency shelter for 425 homeless men and women each night. That does not include a nearby “overflow” shelter that takes in another 300-plus men.
In addition, CASS offers employment services as well as other programs for the homeless. CASS reports 10,000 to 12,000 homeless live in Maricopa County.
CASS is part of a larger county-supported campus offering food, health care and treatment services. The campus is inside the Capitol Mall area and just blocks from Schriro’s office.
Homeless on parole counted
On July 5, Schriro made the short trip to CASS to help its chief executive officer, Mark Holleran, identify how many of its homeless clients are on parole. And that, in turn, would help determine whether a DOC parole officer assigned to CASS would need to show up more than one night a week.
“Mark provided me with a printout and we identified 40 individuals who are currently on parole,” Schriro said. “In the context of the larger clientele he serves, it’s a fairly small number.”
As staffing levels go, that seemed appropriate, Schriro said.
Holleran said the evening hours are important because many CASS clients work during the day. But he is working with DOC to have a parole officer available on weekends, too, because many CASS clients work at night.
“Our clients have 24-7 needs,” he said.
CASS reports that 30 percent of its clients have a “corrections history.” That could include people who have been in prison but are not on parole. Schriro says more people at CASS are on probation than parole.
Probation falls under county jurisdiction, she said.