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One of the biggest issues facing job seeking ex-offenders is housing. The reason housing for ex-offenders is such an issue would be because of the following problems:
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- The need for a physical address to apply for employment
- The need for a physical address to apply for many types of employment and other assistance programs
- The ability to sustain an individual support system
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Why is housing so difficult for ex-offenders? Two basic reasons which are used as a blanket policy to deny ex-offenders of affordable housing:
- Public housing often has final say if an ex-offender has made suitable rehabilitative efforts which are often harder to accomplish without housing
- Private landlords are not willing to become involved with the issues they may face having an ex-offender living in their units regardless of the history
Because many ex-offenders find housing difficult as they re-enter the workforce, job searching becomes complicated and much harder to use for suitable results. What happens is that many ex-offenders become homeless or rotate back to criminal activity within the first year.
So how do you, as an ex-offender, get yourself around this enormous problem?
- Know that there are alternatives to housing roadblocks
- Be willing and able to make any reasonable efforts to obtain a stable address
For the next question, you are asking how you find housing and what kind. Here are a few suggestions which may help:
- Locate a half-way house in the community or nearby community
- Locate the Goodwill or Salvation Army chapter in your community
- Locate a hotel which charges by the week
- Locate rooming houses, dorms, or the local YMCA
- Check with local non-profits or church ministers for ideas or aid
- Check with local missions or the local government assistance offices
If all other housing options seem impossible to handle, try some of these ideas:
- Check the availability of simply using someone’s address so that you can place it on your applications and resumes to receive mail; use a cell phone to get calls.
- Check to see if you can use a church or social service address while you look for work
If you are worried about the ability to pay rent, try these options:
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- Make a deal with a landlord for maintenance or upkeep of the property in exchange for rent
- Become a church caretaker
- Live in a campground during the open season
- Apply to the Housing Choice Voucher Program (not usable for drug convicted ex-offenders)
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While these suggestions will not work for every ex-offender, housing should not be as large an issue if you consider every option possible. The immediate needs and goals should be the following:
- Find a usable address to find work
- Find a suitable job to bring in a paycheck
- Move to a more stable location and continue searching for better work
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