If the DOC could secure housing for inmates, it could release many others much earlier. Sen. Mike Carrell (R-Lakewood) has submitted a bill that would require the DOC to provide rental vouchers for up to three months for inmates being held longer than their early release date. Despite the expense of these vouchers, the bill is expected to save the DOC $1.5 million a year, according to the fiscal report prepared by legislative staff. It's far more expensive to keep people in prison than in cheap motels or rental housing.
Advocates for the homeless argue that housing ex-cons saves even more taxpayer money, because of reduced use of publicly funded services at hospitals, psychiatric centers, and the like, not to mention the cost of prosecuting and incarcerating them again should they re-offend. The preliminary findings on 1811 Eastlake, for instance, estimate that $2.5 million in public money was saved in a year. But that facility provides permanent housing. Whether temporary vouchers can do the same trick is unknown.
Department of Corrections
Hradec bounced around between motels and the street before being shot by police last month.
Related Content
More About
They didn't do much for Joseph Hradec. In a DOC trailer that sits on the grounds of the Monroe state prison, Wickizer, the Community Corrections Officer, opens the thick file of his former charge, stuffed with reports of repeated arrests, drinking, and volatile behavior, including a shouting episode at an Everett emergency room that brought the police. Several times, Wickizer says, the DOC paid for Hradec to stay at a motel for a week or two, under a program similar to the one Carrell is proposing. (That program ended last year when DOC was told by the state Attorney General's office that it did not have the budgetary authority to pay for housing, an authority that Carrell's bill would provide.)
On one of those occasions, Wickizer drove Hradec to Monroe's Fairground Inn and checked him in for a week. When that was over, Wickizer says, Hradec called him and demanded more time, telling the officer to "reach into that big belly of corruption" for the money. Wickizer got him another week. When near the end of that week Hradec didn't report to Wickizer as instructed, the officer drove back down to the motel. Hradec wasn't there, but the manager let Wickizer into his room. "It was trashed," Wickizer says. "He had vomited all over the place. There were no sheets on the bed. There were beer cans all over."
When Wickizer finally reached Hradec by phone, he told the officer he was "self-medicating."
That was the last time the DOC put up Hradec. He drifted around Snohomish and King County after that. The last time Wickizer saw him was on January 8. Hradec had been released that day from the King County Jail, where he had been held for failing to report to Wickizer and leaving Snohomish County without permission. "He indicated he was going to be homeless again," Wickizer says. The officer gave Hradec some bus passes and told him to report back in a week. Hradec never made it in.
nshapiro@seattleweekly.com
