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Pima County: transition center traffic and outcomes rise; housing remains key to reducing rebookings
Summary
County officials reported the transition center has served more than 2,000 unique individuals and is seeing a rise in people released from jail seeking services. Data presented showed lower rebooking rates for people who obtain stable housing after center engagement compared with those who do not.
Pima County officials told the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday that the county’s transition center has now served more than 2,000 unique individuals and that monthly usage has climbed to more than 300 clients in recent months.
Justice Services Director Kate Vesley and Deputy County Administrator Holmes said the center is receiving an increasing number of people released directly from detention, and an increasing share of those are people with felony charges rather than the misdemeanor population the program initially focused on.
Vesley presented data showing an earlier control-group analysis in which misdemeanor defendants who used the center rebooked at substantially lower rates than similarly situated individuals who did not access services. “The data demonstrates… by combining a certain number of levers in the form of housing, peer support, justice navigation and access to treatment, those levers tend to change behaviors, which is ultimately what we want for our community,” Vesley said.
County staff emphasized housing access as the single most critical variable: people the county placed in secure housing were rebooked at much lower rates than those who remained unhoused. Staff also reported operational changes to make it easier for recently released people to reach the center, including improved routing between the jail and the center and more direct law-enforcement drop-offs.
The county is building performance metrics to reflect the changing client mix and plans a public-facing dashboard to show outcomes and downloadable data. Leadership also reported strong national interest in the transition center model from pretrial and criminal-justice networks, and increased requests for tours.
Why this matters: The county’s transition center is positioned as a diversion and reentry support that officials say reduces re-arrest and improves compliance with court obligations. The board asked staff to keep developing metrics and to focus on securing more after-hours shelter capacity and faster access to treatment intakes.
Provenance: Presentation and slides by Justice Services Director Kate Vesley and Deputy County Administrator Holmes during the county-administrator update portion of the agenda.
