"Returning to a real home: former inmates get second chance in public housing"

Via The Guardian: "Nearly 10 years in prison is long enough to make someone dependent on the basic necessities: food, housing and heat. So when Darnell Smith, 31, prepared to leave Sing Sing correctional facility in Westchester, New York, he began to panic. He had no home outside of his cell.

Smith’s wife and two children – a family now expanded to three kids – lived in one of the 328 New York City public housing developments for low-income residents. But Smith wasn’t allowed to join them, on account of a long-standing housing policy that severely limits the opportunities for convicted felons to live in public housing.

'You’re telling me I cannot live with my wife and kids and the only way I could is if they leave public housing?' Smith said.
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Smith considered a homeless shelter, which is the immediate destination for many formerly incarcerated people in New York City. A relative helped him cobble together the monthly $600 for a single room in Harlem with no kitchen – basically like 'being in a box', Smith recalled."