TY - JOUR
T1 - “A Program, Not the Projects”
T2 - Reentry in the Post-Public Housing Era
AU - Hamlin, Madeleine
AU - Purser, Gretchen
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by a Summer Project Assistantship Award from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2021.
PY - 2021/12
Y1 - 2021/12
N2 - Prisoner reentry is widely recognized as a hybrid project of poverty governance situated at the intersection of the welfare state and penal state. Numerous scholars have examined the devolved terrain and organizational dynamics of reentry services. Still others have emphasized the particular challenges and importance of housing to the reentry process. However, few have examined how reentry organizations secure or manage housing for their clients, particularly in an era marked by a widespread housing affordability crisis and the retrenchment of public housing in favor of privatized subsidized housing provision. In this article, we present an ethnographic case study of one particularly illustrative site: “New Beginnings,” a new and novel housing development in Syracuse, NY, codeveloped and comanaged by a prisoner reentry organization and a local housing authority. We show that, despite its ostensible mission to integrate the formerly incarcerated and provide much-needed housing to the poor, the development reproduces the stigma of criminal history, producing a sense of ambivalence among residents, who are both grateful for the quality of their new housing and resentful of ongoing forms of carceral supervision and control. In turn, formerly incarcerated residents uphold their participation in the program as a way to distinguish themselves from traditional public housing tenants, further entrenching dominant narratives about the failures of public housing. These findings reveal the complex interplay between the project of reentry and the provision of subsidized housing in the post-public housing era.
AB - Prisoner reentry is widely recognized as a hybrid project of poverty governance situated at the intersection of the welfare state and penal state. Numerous scholars have examined the devolved terrain and organizational dynamics of reentry services. Still others have emphasized the particular challenges and importance of housing to the reentry process. However, few have examined how reentry organizations secure or manage housing for their clients, particularly in an era marked by a widespread housing affordability crisis and the retrenchment of public housing in favor of privatized subsidized housing provision. In this article, we present an ethnographic case study of one particularly illustrative site: “New Beginnings,” a new and novel housing development in Syracuse, NY, codeveloped and comanaged by a prisoner reentry organization and a local housing authority. We show that, despite its ostensible mission to integrate the formerly incarcerated and provide much-needed housing to the poor, the development reproduces the stigma of criminal history, producing a sense of ambivalence among residents, who are both grateful for the quality of their new housing and resentful of ongoing forms of carceral supervision and control. In turn, formerly incarcerated residents uphold their participation in the program as a way to distinguish themselves from traditional public housing tenants, further entrenching dominant narratives about the failures of public housing. These findings reveal the complex interplay between the project of reentry and the provision of subsidized housing in the post-public housing era.
KW - carceral state
KW - ethnography
KW - poverty governance
KW - prisoner reentry
KW - public housing
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85106586695&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85106586695&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/08912416211017270
DO - 10.1177/08912416211017270
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85106586695
VL - 50
SP - 806
EP - 834
JO - Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
JF - Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
SN - 0891-2416
IS - 6
ER -