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Community-based organizations functioned as the de facto safety net.

Community-based organizations served as the safety net for both reentry and disaster, providing housing search assistance, employment ladders, education, and treatment. This is consistent with what we have found previously: these organizations supply resources and forms of capital that individuals who are the most socially vulnerable may not otherwise have access to, and during a disaster they become lifelines. Participants’ recommendations converge on five points: listen to the individual rather than applying a category; begin release planning well before release; retain remote reporting; put lived experience “at the table”; and reorient the officer’s role from surveillance to support. Several proposed routing reentry through community-based organizations altogether.