Third Sector works with our government agencies and communities to shift our criminal-legal system toward diversion and community-based models that make housing and support services more accessible to all.
Our Approach to Diversion and Reentry
Most of us, whether we are White, Black or Brown, believe that everyone should be able to live a full and healthy life, no matter what we may have done in our past. But for too long, we've put up barriers to prevent formerly incarcerated people and homeless people from having the economic opportunities they need to live the lives of their dreams.
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These barriers include having to navigate often siloed and cumbersome government bureaucracies and punitive policies that affect people long after they are no longer involved with the legal system. We should break the cycle of incarceration and homelessness by integrating and accelerating a continuum of support across criminal-legal, housing, health care, and workforce systems that build stable lives and safe communities.
Third Sector supports state and county criminal-legal systems and its housing, health care, and workforce partners to:
- Foster improvements in life outcomes for children, teens and young adults, and adults at risk of being involved with the legal system (or were previously or are currently involved);
- Implement education & training, mental health, and/or permanent supportive housing programs that achieve measurable outcomes after program completion; and
- Provide the tools and capacity our public agencies need to sustain a community-based continuum of support to address racial, gender, and geographic inequities.
Our work is rooted in a vision for the future where our governments invest in community-driven strategies instead of incarceration and surveillance.
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Featured Projects
| Project Name | Scope | Location | Status |
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| California Interagency Council on Homelessness | State | CA | Closed |
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From March 2022 to December 2023, Third Sector advised counties receiving Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention (HHAP) funds on how to improve state performance goals through various outcomes contracting and continuous improvement strategies. Third Sector also advised the 13 state departments in the state's Funding and Programs Working Group to act on various policy and program priorities by developing a racial equity data plan to improve system coordination and administrative efficiency, a pathway for counties to escalate persistent challenges that require more state support, guidance, or collective problem-solving; and peer-learning forums across state and county departments.
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| Designing a Resource Center for Justice-Involved Individuals in Oklahoma | State | OK | Closed |
| Third Sector partnered with ProsperOK to design and launch JusticeLink, a free community center for justice-involved Oklahomans who need assistance navigating the criminal-legal system as they reenter their communities. The new center streamlines and simplifies the many services available to people dealing with criminal cases. | |||
| Designing a More Equitable and Youth-Centered Contracting Function for the Newly Formed Department of Youth Development | County | CA | Closed |
| Third Sector partnered with The W. Haywood Burns Institute and the LA County Chief Executive Office to establish the county’s Department of Youth Development (DYD). DYD sets more responsive and equitable ways for the county to deploy funding and resources to community-based prevention and support services for youth at risk, currently engaged, or previously involved with the criminal-legal system. | |||
| Supporting Formerly Incarcerated, Homeless Oregonians at High Risk of Recidivating | County | OR | Closed |
| Third Sector supported a Lane County partnership with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development & U.S. Department of Justice in the first Permanent Supportive Housing project in the county to help formerly incarcerated, homeless Oregonians who are at high risk of recidivating. Led by Homes for Good Housing Agency, Sponsors, Inc. and Lane County Parole and Probation, The Way Home will serve 125 Oregonians struggling with homelessness over the next few years. | |||
All Diversion and Reentry Projects
| Project Name | Scope | Location | Status | |
| Pennsylvania DOC REACH Project | State | PA | Closed | |
Description:Third Sector worked with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to expand its existing Housing Assistance Program via an outcomes-based contract to serve reentrants with limited ability to earn an income due to disability and/or older age. The expanded program – ReEntrants Attaining Community Housing (REACH) – will provide enhanced case management and financial assistance to those reentrants, and PADOC will use federal DOJ Second Chance Act Grant dollars to make bonus payments to providers for achievement of initial housing placement, permanent housing placement, and recidivism reduction outcomes. Third Sector supported PADOC in developing the procurement and outcomes contract by co-designing the eligibility criteria, outcomes, and data tools for continuous improvement with PADOC and their providers.
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| California Interagency Council on Homelessness | State | CA | Closed | |
Description:
From March 2022 to December 2023, Third Sector advised counties receiving Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention (HHAP) funds on how to improve state performance goals through various outcomes contracting and continuous improvement strategies. Third Sector also advised the 13 state departments in the state's Funding and Programs Working Group to act on various policy and program priorities by developing a racial equity data plan to improve system coordination and administrative efficiency, a pathway for counties to escalate persistent challenges that require more state support, guidance, or collective problem-solving; and peer-learning forums across state and county departments.
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| Designing a Resource Center for Justice-Involved Individuals in Oklahoma | State | OK | Closed | |
Description:
Third Sector partnered with ProsperOK to design and launch JusticeLink, a free community center for justice-involved Oklahomans who need assistance navigating the criminal-legal system as they reenter their communities. The new center streamlines and simplifies the many services available to people dealing with criminal cases.
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| Designing a More Equitable and Youth-Centered Contracting Function for the Newly Formed Department of Youth Development | County | CA | Closed | |
Description:
Third Sector partnered with The W. Haywood Burns Institute and the LA County Chief Executive Office to establish the county’s Department of Youth Development (DYD). DYD sets more responsive and equitable ways for the county to deploy funding and resources to community-based prevention and support services for youth at risk, currently engaged, or previously involved with the criminal-legal system.
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| Supporting Formerly Incarcerated, Homeless Oregonians at High Risk of Recidivating | County | OR | Closed | |
Description:
Third Sector supported a Lane County partnership with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development & U.S. Department of Justice in the first Permanent Supportive Housing project in the county to help formerly incarcerated, homeless Oregonians who are at high risk of recidivating. Led by Homes for Good Housing Agency, Sponsors, Inc. and Lane County Parole and Probation, The Way Home will serve 125 Oregonians struggling with homelessness over the next few years.
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| NYC Veterans Services | City | NY | Closed | |
Description:
New York City's Department of Veterans' Services (DVS) is the newest City agency with the mission foster purpose driven lives for NYC service members, veterans, and their families. DVS partnered with Third Sector to conduct an Education and Employment Landscape Analysis to assess the current system of veterans services and accelerate DVS' capacity as an outcomes-oriented government agency. The three month engagement concluded with recommendations and a roadmap, highlighting next steps to structure outcomes-oriented initiatives to improve employment opportunities for veterans and their families.
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| Alameda County Justice Restoration Project (ACJRP) | County | CA | Closed | |
Description:The Alameda County Justice Restoration Project (ACJRP) is led by the Alameda County District Attorney's Office and various county partners to improve outcomes for young adults who previously committed low-level felony crimes. ACJRP is a new model for community re-entry after jail release that addresses self-sufficiency goals and community safety by breaking the cycle of incarceration with service navigation support and intensive case management for adults aged 18-34. La Familia Counseling Services, a community-based organization, will support young adults returning to their neighborhoods in Alameda County through its Individualized Coaching Model. Clients will be paired for 18 months with coaches with similar life experiences who will provide dedicated engagement and mentorship. Coaches will coordinate with probation officers and trained professionals to streamline access to an array of services that are challenging for clients to navigate without support.
As the project manager, Third Sector is providing technical assistance throughout the Build phase, fundraise, fiscal management, and program pilot in partnership with WestEd (evaluator), Building Opportunities for Self Sufficiency (fiscal manager), and the Probation Department, the County Administrator’s Office, and the Sheriff’s Office, among other County partners. This project was developed with the support of the Corporation for National and Community Service under the Social Innovation Fund and the CA PFS Initiative, funded by the James Irvine Foundation and administered by the Nonprofit Finance Fund.
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| Lane County Permanent Supportive Housing | County | OR | Closed | |
Description:Lane County, in partnership with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development & US Department of Justice, plans to scale an existing Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) program to address the costly and debilitating needs of homeless Oregonians reentering the community from incarceration. Using the Housing First model, Lane County strives to permanently house and provide comprehensive case management to formerly incarcerated individuals in need of housing through a combination of existing Low Income Tax Credit units, Public Housing units and Section 8 vouchers. Project partners seek to fund intense case management services (substance abuse treatment, job training, and mental health services) through a Pay for Success contract with various county and state government partners to demonstrate the lasting impact of permanent housing and supportive service on recidivism, stable housing, and healthcare utilization outcomes.
The effort is led Lane County Homes for Good, the county housing agency overseeing a 3,000-unit Section 8 program and 1,600 units of public housing and project based Section 8 units; Lane County Parole & Probation (P&P), a division of Lane County Administration that oversees +2,500 adult on supervision and related programming; and Sponsors, Inc., the leading community organization in Lane County, providing reentry, housing, and employment services to over 500 clients per year for over 40 years.
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| LA County Just in Reach | County | CA | Closed | |
Description:
Los Angeles County has launched Just in Reach (JIR), a new health-based housing program that will reduce jail recidivism and help end homelessness among people experiencing repeat jail stays. Over four years, JIR will place 300 homeless individuals who are currently in custody within the county jail and who have a mental health and/or substance use disorder into permanent supportive housing. This permanent supportive housing initiative emerged from Third Sector's multi-year engagement with the LA Chief Executive Office and Board of Supervisors for how to fund and expand community-based and cost-saving alternatives to incarceration or homelessness for children, adults, or families. — This project closed in 2017.
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| San Diego Veterans | City | CA | Closed | |
Description:
Veterans across the country face numerous barriers as they seek to reenter the workforce. While many supportive services are available to veterans, the process of navigating through a local network can be daunting. Project (re)Launch will seek to ameliorate this issue by expanding access to 2-1-1 San Diego's Courage to Call (C2C) service offering, a closed-loop case management service that connects veterans to over 1,200 mental health, housing and financial assistance providers in the San Diego area, and coupling the C2C program with the VA's Vocational Rehabilitiation and Employment (VR&E) program. Third Sector is providing technical assistance/project structuring support to 2-1-1 on the project. Veterans that are enrolled in the VR&E vocational training program will be assigned a navigator from C2C that will help assess the veteran's needs, refer them to appropriate supportive services, and track their progress towards barrier removal through 2-1-1's Community Information Exchange data platform, a system that allows 2-1-1 to interface with service providers in its network to track participant progress. Our theory of change is that if veterans are well-equipped to remove health related barriers as they go through vocational training and the job search process, they will have an easier time achieving desired employment outcomes.
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| Cuyahoga County Lead (Cleveland) | County | OH | Closed | |
Description:
The Cleveland Foundation asked the Cuyahoga County Board of Health to conduct a feasibility assessment of PFS applicability to reduce lead poisoning in the city of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County. Lead poisoning is a pervasive, irreversible public health problem in the community and can lead to reduced education outcomes and higher involvement with the criminal system in the long run; we are centered on housing remediation as our intervention to reduce lead poisoning and blood lead levels in the community. Third Sector engaged with potential end payers to gauge interest in involvement in an outcomes-oriented/PFS structure from state, local, and federal government parties, as well as health care, education, and business institutions.
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| SIF Workforce: San Diego | County | CA | Closed | |
Description:
San Diego County had a significant population of justice-involved youth and young adults that are at a high risk of recidivism, and are disconnected from both employment and education due to lack of services from traditional workforce channels. Second Chance, a local service provider, looked to deliver a program tailored to justice-involved youth that would provide skills training and other wraparound supports that prepare youth to attain and succeed in employment and post-secondary education. Third Sector provided SDWP, the county workforce board that contracts for employment services, with technical advisory in building the project. SDWP, through this partnership, looked to replicate an outcomes-oriented service model across its county-wide programs, and project involvement from the state level Employment Development Division (EDD) to pave the way for scaling outcomes-orientated services to workforce boards throughout California.
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| Administrative Data Pilot: San Diego | County | CA | Closed | |
Description:
Third Sector, in partnership with Stanford’s Center on Poverty and Inequality (CPI), helped San Diego County’s Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA) to gain access to numerous administrative databases to better understand short- and long-term effects of the County’s various homelessness response efforts, specifically the Whole Person Wellness and Project One for All programs. Third Sector and CPI helped to deploy data insights to improve and embed outcomes in the contracting structure of various homelessness and health initiatives, building the outcomes oriented contracting expertise that will assist in broader agency shifts.
San Diego HHSA joins Santa Cruz County’s Human Services Department and Washington State’s Department of Early Learning in Third Sector and CPI's Social Innovation Fund Administrative Data Pilot cohort, which will also include a Learning Community designed to facilitate cross-site collaboration and technical/process training around data analysis and deployment.
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| Salt Lake City Mayor’s Office: Homelessness & Reentry | City | UT | Closed | |
Description:
From 2014-2019, Third Sector designed and launched two projects to support residents facing homelessness and behavioral health challenges in Salt Lake County, Utah. Homes Not Jails, a $6 million effort, scaled comprehensive Rapid Rehousing and wraparound supportive services to 315 individuals exiting county jail, which resulted in a 46% increase in timely access to mental health services and a 16% reduction in shelter and jail month utilization (vs. control group). Another $6 million project, "Criminal Justice REACH," served over 225 high-risk, high-need justice-involved residents suffering from substance use disorder and other co-occurring criminogenic characteristics, which reduced days of incarceration by 40% and improved employment by 20% (vs. control group).
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| Salt Lake City PFS: Recidivism | City | UT | Closed | |
Description:
The REACH program served at least 225 adult males at high risk of re-engaging in criminal behavior using an intensive suite of services targeted at criminogenic factors. These services focus on providing evidence-based behavioral health counseling modalities (moral recognition therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and motivational interviewing), along with housing supports.
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| Oregon Juvenile Alternatives to Incarceration | County | OR | Closed | |
Description:
Third Sector worked with Marion and Multnomah Counties to conduct PFS feasibility in partnership with the national nonprofit Youth Villages and its Intercept program, with the goal of reducing crime and systems involvement for youth ages 10-18 assessed at medium or high risk of committing further delinquent acts in the next 12 months and at-risk of placement in a youth correctional facility at the Oregon Youth Authority. Marion and Multnomah Counties demonstrated an innovative partnership between two county-level governments and the state Oregon Youth Authority, offered unique urban and rural contexts for demonstration sites, and also created an opportunity to work with Youth Villages, a national evidence-based nonprofit with ability to scale interventions. — This project closed in 2016.
The feasibility study is available here.
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| Massachusetts Juvenile Justice PFS Initiative | State | MA | Closed | |
Description:
The Massachusetts Juvenile Justice PFS Initiative, the fourth PFS project launched in the country and the largest to-date, was designed to improve outcomes for hundreds of at-risk young men in the probation system or leaving the juvenile justice system. The intentions of the Massachusetts Juvenile Justice Pay for Success Initiative was to, not only improve the lives of young people, but also to reduce crime, promote safer and stronger communities and save taxpayer dollars. The initiative allowed Roca, a nonprofit based in Chelsea, to provide its high-impact intervention to 929 at-risk young men aged 17 to 23 who were in the probation system or exiting the juvenile justice system. Roca’s programming aims to reduce recidivism and increase employment through intensive street outreach and targeted life skills, education and employment programming. The Roca intervention was delivered over an intensive two-year period followed by two years of follow-up engagement.
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| Project Welcome Home | County | CA | Closed | |
Description:
Project Welcome Home waa the first Pay for Success project launched in California. In partnership with Abode Services, the County of Santa Clara intends to serve 150-200 chronically homeless individuals that are frequent users of the County's emergency rooms, acute mental health facilities, and jail. Abode will provide chronically homeless individuals with access to community-based clinical services and permanent supportive housing using evidence-based Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) and a Housing First approach. These services are designed to end the participants’ homelessness, increase income, and provide increased access to ongoing physical and behavioral health services.
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| State of Illinois Dually Involved Youth PFS Project | State | IL | Closed | |
Description:
The State of Illinois awarded one PFS contract to increase support for at-risk youth dually involved in both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems in Illinois. The Conscience Community Network, with One Hope United as lead agency, coordinated a continuum of evidence-based practices to reduce utilization of institutional care for these dually involved youth. The project aimed to improve placement outcomes, reduce re-arrests, and improve child well-being and transitions to adulthood. Third Sector’s work included arranging funding, leading stakeholder negotiations, project construction, and economic modeling.
Illinois is the first state to implement Pay for Success to improve child welfare outcomes, as well as the first to partner with a network of community providers for service delivery.
The Conscience Community Network is a collaborative of seven child welfare agencies with deep ties to the Illinois community and over 741 years of experience serving youth in Illinois: Lawrence Hall Youth Services, Maryville Academy, OMNI Youth Services, One Hope United, SGA Youth & Family Services, UCAN and Youth Outreach Services.
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| Cuyahoga County Partnering for Family Success Program | County | OH | Closed | |
Description:
Cuyahoga County launched the first family homelessness and child welfare project in the nation, known as the Partnering for Family Success Program. The Partnering for Family Success Program began implementation in early 2015. The program aims to reduce the length of stay in out-of-home foster care placement for children whose caregivers are homeless. A confluence of factors including substance abuse and mental illness make it difficult for these caregivers to secure stable housing that empowers them to successfully complete their case plan with the County’s child welfare system and build a safe home environment for their children.
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| City/County of San Francisco PFS | City, County | CA | Closed | |
Description:
With support from the James Irvine Foundation and Nonprofit Finance Fund’s California Pay for Success Initiative, Third Sector partnered with the City and County of San Francisco Office of Civic Innovation to explore the possibility of PFS projects in three impact areas: maternal and infant health, at-risk transitional-aged youth and homeless families.
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| National Council on Crime and Delinquency | Nation | National | Closed | |
Description:
With support from the California Endowment, Third Sector worked with the National Council on Crime and Delinquency to develop Pay for Success feasibility studies in the arenas of child welfare and restorative justice. The feasibility studies explored how specific interventions can be adapted for Pay for Success contracting on the county level.
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| County of Los Angeles Blueprint | County | CA | Closed | |
Description:
With support from the James Irvine Foundation and Nonprofit Finance Fund’s California Pay for Success Initiative, Third Sector partnered with Los Angeles County to complete a county-wide “Blueprint” released in October 2014, a report recommending how the county should develop one or more PFS projects. The county plans to develop at least one PFS pilot project pending Board approval.
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Get in touch
Oscar Benitez
Managing Director, Diversion & Reentry
San Francisco, CA | obenitez@thirdsectorcap.org