The Kane County Sheriff’s Office is proposing a transitional housing program in Aurora that would help those who have served their jail or prison sentence reintegrate into society with the goal of lowering the number of repeat offenders.
At a meeting on Wednesday, Kane County Board Executive Committee members approved two resolutions that would give the project a total of $800,000 from federal pandemic-era relief funds allocated to the county through the American Rescue Plan Act.
The resolutions are set to go before the Kane County Board next week for final approval.
During his presentation to the Executive Committee, Kane County Sheriff Ron Hain said the lack of transitional housing in Kane County is one of the major “roadblocks” in keeping former convicts from going back to a life of crime.
The proposed program would help lower the jail population, saving taxpayer dollars, and lower the crime rate, he said.
Existing re-entry support programs through the Kane County Sheriff’s Office have already saved Kane County taxpayers millions of dollars, according to a Project Eligibility Risk Assessment included with the meeting’s agenda.
The program is proposed to be located at a multi-use building at 131 W. Illinois Ave. in Aurora, according to his presentation. If funding for the project is approved by the Kane County Board, the $800,000 would go toward the purchase of that building and any furniture or renovation it needs, Hain said.
The project would also need to be approved by the city of Aurora by way of permitting, he said at a previous meeting.
According to Hain’s presentation on Wednesday, the program’s goal is to place those leaving the Kane County Jail or an Illinois Department of Corrections prison who would otherwise be homeless into one of the building’s residential units for up to six months.
He said each of the building’s four units could hold up to two men.
Those with violence- or sex-related convictions would not be eligible for the program, Hain said. Women are also not eligible since men are much more often the ones who need housing after being let out of jail, he said.
Residents would get their first month in the program free so Sheriff’s Office staff can work with them to get a job, according to Hain. After that, residents would be charged $750 a month, he said.
The funds generated by the residents, expected to be around $72,000 each year, would go toward maintenance for the building, estimated to be roughly $45,000 a year, and support the reentry program’s other services, Hain said.
Further revenue would come from a billboard that is already installed on the structure and a room in the building currently rented by Alcoholics Anonymous that would continue to be offered to the organization, he said.
Additional space in the building could be used for other county services, including a Sheriff’s Office substation, job training rooms and addiction treatment or drug testing rooms, according to the presentation.
The program is set to be located in Aurora because roughly 30% of the people incarcerated in the Kane County Jail will return to the city, Hain said.
Because the city of Aurora has yet to review the project, Kane County Executive Committee members included a clause in the two resolutions saying that the county will seek Aurora’s input on the program.
Committee members stressed that, even if the project’s funding is approved by the whole Kane County Board next week, the county would still need to seek permission from the city of Aurora to move forward with the project at the proposed location.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com