expo of wisconsin Call: 608-467-2495
How do we establish ourselves, move forward, reunite with our children, and healthily participate in our communities? How do we “prove” ourselves to society when we can not even secure a safe place to call home? Many want to be accepted into their communities with an opportunity to provide for themselves and their families. Human beings are motivated by their needs. We, as a marginalized population, are not different from anyone else. We should not be defined or held back by our greatest regret. Everyone deserves a place they can call home. The Cost In Wisconsin, we spend between $36,000 and $42,000 per person per year on incarceration. That is over $3000 per month to house people in prison. What if a portion of those funds could be invested in creating safe, dignified, supportive housing? In Wisconsin, a modest apartment costs anywhere between $700-$1500 per month. The monetary savings alone is at least $1500 per month. These sav- ings do not include the fact that housing offers an opportunity to stabilize people and families, their tax contributions, and the overall contributions people are making to public safety and healthier communities. We are asking that Wisconsin invest in people and public safety by diverting a portion of the mon- ey we spend on both incarcerating people and on probation, parole, or extended supervision and allocate these funds to create safe environments for people to call home when returning to their communities. In July 2019, the Post Crescent wrote that Wisconsin revocations for rule violations, not new crimes, are the number 1 cause of incarceration, accounting for 40% of new admissions. The cost to Wisconsin taxpayers is 147.5 million dollars. We can not help but recognize a correlation between housing instability and incarceration. We can create safer, healthier communities for all of us by creating new avenues for investments into safe, dignified and supportive housing.
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