Milwaukee County

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Milwaukee County is home to over 950,000 people living in one of 19 communities, which range in size from the City of Milwaukee, with 595,000 residents, to the Village of River Hills, with roughly 1,600 residents.

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Just Home Project

A community-led effort to help people impacted by housing instability and jail incarceration

Just Home Project

We're recruiting paid consultants for 2025!

Housing instability and the justice system are intertwined. What interventions would you design to change that?

Milwaukee County is seeking feedback from residents who have experienced housing instability and justice involvement. Your advice is crucial.

Please complete this survey to apply for one of our paid positions: https://forms.office.com/g/4gJj4f77D4

We compensate our consultants starting at $20 per hour. Feel free to share the link with anyone.

We will ask for you to be yourself: Give us your honest thoughts and opinions about ideas for new housing programs that could help keep people from returning to jail. We will also give you space describe how housing instability and the justice system impacted your life. Everything you say will be private and anonymous.

More detail about the project: Milwaukee County is planning to create new programs to help people who are justice involved and experiencing housing instability. The term "justice involved" means "having interactions with the justice system as a defendant." In other words, someone who has been arrested, spent time in jail or prison, or spent time on parole.

Many times, housing instability can lead to justice involvement because of the difficult circumstances of the instability. Or - the other way around - justice involvement can make someone's housing unstable, especially when trying to find housing after release. If you (or a loved one) have experienced this, we are able to pay you for your feedback, advice, and consultation.

We plan to conduct interviews, surveys, and group discussions to gain your expertise about the best ways to create new programs to help people in the situations described above.

We will always honor your right to remain anonymous if you want to keep your story or input private. Please include your contact information so that we can follow-up with you. Thank you!

Just Home Project is funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, with technical assistance provided by the Urban Institute.

Milwaukee County is one of six sites across the country chosen to join the second Just Home cohort.

Milwaukee County has a long-standing partnership with MacArthur Foundation through its Safety + Justice Challenge (SJC) initiative.

The SJC represents a major investment by MacArthur Foundation to change the way America thinks about and uses jails. In 2016, Milwaukee County was among 11 sites selected to join the SJC initiative. SJC sites receive funding and technical assistance to implement criminal legal system improvements, reduce disparities, and engage community members in systems change.

Just Home builds on this foundation, connecting related efforts and strengthening partnerships to address a critical gap in our community: housing for people with previous criminal legal system involvement, especially individuals with mental health needs.

Milwaukee County Housing Services (MCHS) is the Just Home Project lead agency, and the Milwaukee Community Justice Council (CJC) is the community engagement and criminal legal system partner. MCHS received $375,000 to fund the demonstration period, which includes planning and implementation phases. The grant will cover MCHS staffing and support, evaluation, and community engagement, including stipends for community members.

For more information, please contact the Just Home project manager for Milwaukee County, Maricela Gaona, at [email protected].

Why Just Home Project?

People with previous involvement in the criminal legal system face many barriers to housing:

Limited access to affordable housing
Discriminatory housing screening practices
Restrictive housing eligibility requirements
Destabilized economic situation, like job loss due to incarceration
Overlapping health challenges, such as substance use and mental health needs
Social stigma due to system involvement

People of color are over-represented in the criminal legal system and disproportionally impacted by these issues.

Our Vision

Our Goals

Break the Cycle: Advance solutions that break the link between incarceration and housing instability to prevent cycling through the system
Community Engagement: Engage people with lived experience of housing instability and legal system involvement to influence systems change
Equity: Decrease disparities in outcomes among people with previous system involvement
Education: Capture lessons learned to inform the housing and criminal legal fields, inspiring nationwide reform

Next Steps

During the planning period, a Just Home steering committee will meet. The group will include housing, health, criminal legal, and community stakeholders, especially persons directly impacted by housing instability and incarceration.

MCHS will guide the committee through data collection to identify a focus population for the project. The committee will also connect with existing collaboratives to share data, research population needs and housing gaps, and outline approaches that respond to identified needs.

An evaluator will work with the committee to define outcomes, collect data, and report back to partners for project monitoring and accountability. The evaluator will also engage stakeholders to create a report of lessons learned from Just Home at the end of the demonstration period, with the goal of informing the housing and criminal legal fields.

After the planning period, Milwaukee County will submit a Housing Investment Action Plan (HIAP), describing the housing solutions to be implemented. If the HIAP is approved by the MacArthur Foundation, the County will be eligible for up to $5 million in capital, known as program-related investment (PRI) loans, to offer new housing options for people returning to the community after incarceration.