For the past two months, Clark County jail officials have been running The Landing Pad, a temporary housing and rehabilitation center for people reentering society after incarceration.
Interest in reentry for formerly incarcerated people began back in 2013, when jail program managers began considering how best to connect the inmates to community resources when they got out.
“During incarceration we could connect people to community resources so that when they leave they wouldn’t come back as much,” said jail programs manager of Clark County jail services, Anna Lookingbill. “Perhaps they would start to find recovery or be well or be healthier. They’ll have their basic needs met.”
One factor contributing to the program’s effectiveness is how people access the Landing Pad.
Jail staff must refer individuals to the program before they can be admitted. Once a referral is received, Landing Pad staff arrange to pick up the individual upon release from jail.
“We needed a program that would be available to pick people up from the jail with the appropriate referral from the jail,” said program manager of Clark County community services DeDe Sieler.
The programs team came up with the idea of short-term housing and services to connect people with long-term resources in the community.
Ideally the time to help each case is from two weeks to 30 days at most, and during this time the people are meeting with and connecting to peers.
“Peer support is so critical to the success of the program,” Sieler said. “There’s nothing like people who have been there, knowing what it’s like and really providing a feeling of safety and true support.”
At the Landing Pad, individuals are given help on applications for employment, connecting to a primary care physician and sometimes even reconnecting with family.
“The service provider works really hard to help connect the individual to things that will move them forward in the community into longer term services,” Sieler said. “But very critical to the success of anybody is the right to live with a roof over their head.”
Another key trait of the Landing Pad is that nobody has to go there, it’s completely voluntary to take part in the program and those that do are picked up as soon as possible.
“Upon release, it can’t be an hour after they’re released because that very short time frame is a critical transition point,” Sieler said.
That gap was crucial especially in the earlier stages when people would begin getting help only to be released with no support to help them get back on their feet.
“We have folks who are starting connections in the jail, they’re doing the things, they genuinely want to move forward, and something happens,” Lookingbill said. “They’re released from the facility with nothing and then resume survival or the same behaviors that brought them in to start.”
Timing was a prominent problem when the jail was coming up with the program in the first place.
Lookingbill found it was best to plan around the release date, but due to the judicial system being the one deciding that, the jail was sometimes caught off guard.
“Sometimes something would happen in your legal process, and they’d be released from jail,” Lookingbill said. “Because of that short time frame, that person would fall out into the community without a safety net.”
Though it’s only been open for a couple months, the early statistics of the Landing Pad have shown favorability towards its mission.
In the last two months, 88 people have been referred to the Landing Pad, 44 have been released and 30 of them have actually been to the facility.
Of the 30 that have been in the facility, 27 have left and 70 percent of those people who left secured housing.
“The average length of stay is currently about 28 days,” Sieler said. “We are within what we were anticipating will be an appropriate time frame to provide short-term support to individuals.”
Seated right at the center of the Landing Pad’s mission is public safety and caring for those who don’t have the support they need.
“The idea is that someone can stay somewhere safe temporarily while they connect those other resources,” Lookingbill said. “The stories that we’re hearing from human beings who stay there, we have people that are saying, ‘I wouldn’t have made it otherwise’ which tells me we’re doing the right thing.”
