It was October 2018 when Kadija became homeless for the first time. She was 24 years old and the mother of two children under 10. She’d been out of prison for only about a year, and she couldn’t keep living at home with her parents in Southeast D.C.—they weren’t getting along, and the situation devolved into something “toxic,” she says.

But every time she applied for an apartment and underwent a background check, the same thing happened over and over again. “Everywhere I turned, I was getting no,” Kadija says (DCist is only using her first name for privacy reasons). “It was like, how can you make certain steps forward?”

Kadija has a violent criminal record, and she served three and a half years in prison, she tells DCist. When she got out, she fought to turn her life around, enrolling in Georgetown’s Pivot program for returning citizens, where she got classroom and internship experience along with a stipend. She moved in with her parents, with whom her relationship had always been tumultuous. She kept up with her parole officer.

But for all her efforts, she found herself without a steady place to live in October of 2018, spending time on various friends’ couches as she searched for a more stable place to live—a situation she says is directly related to discrimination she faced as a result of her criminal record.

Kadija’s situation is not uncommon in the District, according to a recent report from the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute. The report finds that returning citizens face particular struggles in finding and keeping housing upon leaving jail or prison, and they often don’t receive the kinds of specialized resources that they need.

“For people returning to D.C. from incarceration, it often means coming home to homelessness,” says Kate Coventry, the author of the DCFPI report. “They face all the same issues that other low-income folks in the District face, but they also face some unique challenges. They’re more likely to have a mental illness, they have weaker ties with their loved ones … and they may face discrimination in the job market and the housing market [due to having been incarcerated].”

At last count, there were 6,521 total people experiencing homelessness in the District. Of those, 3,862 were single adults. About 57 percent of those single adults reported having been incarcerated before, according to the study, and 55 percent of that group causally connected their incarceration with their homelessness. In other words, roughly a third of D.C.’s single adult homeless population says that incarceration caused them to become homeless.

As part of the study, Coventry conducted three focus groups with returning citizens in D.C., outlining their largest challenges upon returning home. “Everyone agreed that housing is both the most important need and the biggest challenge,” she says.

Many D.C. residents who are incarcerated for long periods of time serve their sentences far away from the city, in Bureau of Prisons facilities that could be on the other side of the country. This arrangement can make regular visitation impossible for their family members in D.C., weakening their ties with the community they left. Those weakened connections, Coventry says, may mean that people don’t have any friends or family members they can stay with when they return from prison.

In general, returning citizens also have little to no savings and very low incomes, per the report. Not every incarcerated person is allowed to work during their sentence, and when they do, they generally make drastically below minimum wage. Even once a formerly incarcerated person manages to find employment, “incarceration is associated with an income loss of between 10 to 30 percent,” according to the study.

People in the focus groups also said that they needed a supportive environment where they could be in the company of other returning citizens who can help them find employment and resources, and offer emotional support.

Kadija agrees. She says that, when she was struggling to find a place to live, she could have used a “one-stop shop” resource that had expertise in finding housing for people who’d been incarcerated. She was surprised to find how many resources were limited for her because she had a violent offense on her record, and she wasn’t sure how to figure out where she was likeliest to have a rental application accepted. “It was a really sour reality check to realize you’re still considered a threat because you have this [record],” she says. “It really sucks.”

Under D.C. law, landlords are not allowed to ask about prior criminal convictions in assessing housing applications, but Coventry says that discrimination is still rampant. Kadija believes her record influenced her ability to obtain housing.

The report makes a number of policy recommendations, including implementing housing evaluations for prisoners for months they’re released to create a housing plan for them. Another suggested program would offer monetary assistance to families willing to take their loved one in after incarceration, helping with utility bills and groceries to make up for the extra expense.

For returning citizens at high risk of reoffending, the study suggests creating medium-term housing options (for up to three years) after which the risk of recidivism drops drastically, per the report. Coventry suggests something called a joint transitional rapid rehousing program, which would provide communal housing for returning citizens without another place to go, and a rapid rehousing program specifically for returning citizens who have to leave transitional housing (transitional housing is a fraught topic in D.C.—residents of the only men’s halfway house in the city have often complained about services there, and now there’s continuing uncertainty about whether that halfway house can even remain in the city).

Coventry also suggests dedicating shelter space specifically for returning citizens, offering case managers who have special training in working with returning citizens and with mental health and substance abuse resources on site.

“If we want to help returning citizens succeed,” Coventry says, “We need to listen to them when they tell us what they need and do our best to provide those services.”

Eventually, with the help of a mentor who taught her how to navigate apartment hunting, Kadija moved into her own apartment in Ward 7 with her children. She is working as a community engagement associate at the Council for Court Excellence, and this month she is celebrating her year anniversary in her place. She says she hopes to see new action in the community to help people like her, who struggle to find their footing upon returning home from prison.

“It’s going to take community effort and just a lot of compassion on everybody’s part to make a change that will benefit the whole city and not just one person,” she says. “You’re supposed to love your neighbor. I really, really believe in that.”