Opinion - Our View

POSTED: Saturday, Jul. 11, 2009

Halfway house welcome

The opening of a new halfway house in Bellingham is good news for all of us.

Seven former federal prison inmates with ties to Whatcom County will be living at a facility on Baker Creek Place, the former home of the old SSP Alternatives Corrections Facility, which closed after losing its contract with Whatcom County.

We are pleased that most neighbors in the Mount Baker Neighborhood are embracing the new use for the facility.

Halfway homes are an important part of our system of justice. Too often, men and women serve their time in jail and prison and then are just set free without a place to call home or a direction in their life. It does a disservice to those who have paid their debt to society, and to society as a whole, if we abandon those right out of prison and then see them immediately fall back into the pre-prison habits and lifestyles that led them to commit crimes in the first place.

At the new facility a staff of 13 people will keep watch on the residents. Counselors and case managers will develop programs to provide residents continuing treatment for substance abuse and other behavioral or mental issues, as well as connect them to needed social services.

Eventually, under the current contract, the facility will house 12 men and four women.

The residents will be allowed to leave for about eight hours a day to obtain jobs and then work at those jobs but will be given breath tests when they return. They also will be subject to random urinalysis to ensure they are not using drugs.

We hope the men and women who end up living at the facility are able to transition back into society in a meaningful and successful way.