Faith-Based Halfway House Wins Ruling

The use of tax funds to help pay for a halfway house run by a religious organization is constitutional, a federal appeals court has ruled.

The decision by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Wisconsin program that allowed Faith Works Milwaukee to receive government funds to run one of several halfway houses available to parole violators.

The court compared allowing Faith Works to be part of the program with the use of vouchers for private school education.

“The state in effect gives eligible offenders ‘vouchers’ that they can use to purchase a place in a halfway house, whether the halfway house is ‘parochial’ or secular,” the judges said.

The program had been challenged by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., which said that allowing parole officers to recommend the faith-based program amounted to “governmental support to religion.”