Roughly 2,000 former inmates who return to communities every day in the U.S. face significant transportation burdens getting to and from job interviews and their many required parole-related appointments. To ease their reintegration into society, University of Texas at Arlington researchers partnered with Dallas, Texas reentry broker Unlocking DOORS to develop a unique solution: three computer models that optimize the locations of housing and service providers to ensure that former offenders can actually, realistically, make it everywhere they need to be.

"If I'm able to put in where a guy resides… and it's going to populate for me all the different service providers that are available, the different employers that are available, in either a walkable or easy public transportation spectrum – or even on a bicycle – then we're doing great. I think this is really going to be a game changer for us. We're very excited about it." 
Christina Melton Crain, Unlocking DOORs

Learn more about the project Optimizing Housing and Service Locations to Provide Mobility to Meet the Mandated Obligations for Former Offenders to Improve Community Health and Safety led by Anne Nordberg, University of Texas at Arlington.