Dustin Teays/Newton Daily News Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Lt. Gov. Adam Gregg, right, pose for photos Thursday during the official launch of the Homes for Iowa project at the Newton Correctional Facility.

NEWTON — Newton Correctional Facility is adopting a project that will be able to supply Iowa communities with affordable housing and provide inmates with job training to use once they are released.

The building phase for the Homes for Iowa project launched Thursday at the minimum-security prison in Newton. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Lt. Gov. Adam Gregg were among the legislators who participated in the groundbreaking alongside members of Iowa Prison Industries (IPI), Homes for Iowa Inc. and Newton Correctional Facility.

Jeremy Larson, deputy ward of the Newton Correctional Facility, said Newton’s is centralized location will be beneficial for transporting the houses throughout Iowa once they have been built.

“The big part of this program is the transporting of the houses once they are placed somewhere in Iowa … We are close to (Interstate 80). That is why Newton is a great spot,” Larson said.

The central pillars of the Homes for Iowa project are to build affordable houses for communities and to give inmates the necessary skills to reintegrate into society.

“We are about successful re-entry and doing this project will allow these guys to gain those skills and be successful when they return,” Larson said. “So it’s making our communities safer.”

Marty Wymore, who serves as director of Region 6 Resource Partners in Marshalltown, said the Homes for Iowa Board told his agency that in the first year, the Iowa Prison Industries hopes to build four homes that would be sent to Marshalltown. This would be a way to help with housing shortages caused by the July 2018 tornado.

The motivation for IPI and the Iowa Department of Corrections to train the inmates is so they will have valuable skills to take back into the societal workforce. Officials claim this will allow those who are incarcerated to find gainful employment.

“The men that are here are going to be trained as apprentice carpenters and plumbers and electricians and other trades like that,” Dan Clark, director of Iowa Prison Industries, said.

Larson added, “These jobs are in demand. You know trades jobs are in demand everywhere … It’ll be a great opportunity for Newton to really gain some employment out of it too.”

This program also came from an affordable housing need for Iowa communities that didn’t have a way to increase their housing availability on their own.

“It was really just an overall need. How do we get new housing? How do we build new housing? How do we rejuvenate some of our areas?” Mike Norris, executive director of Southeast Iowa Regional Planning Commission (SEIRPC), said.

The need for housing was brought to the attention of the IPI to see if there was any way that SEIRPC and IPI could work together to try and solve the housing problem in these communities.

Clark added, “They came to IPI and said, ‘Could you possibly build affordable homes inside of a correctional institution?’ So we thought they were crazy.”

During initial discussions of the idea and trying to see if they could get something like this to work, it came to both entities’ attention that another prison in the Midwest was doing exactly this.

“We became aware of what South Dakota was doing and that became the model,” Norris said.

IPI and the Councils of Government took multiple trips to the South Dakota prison to see how it was set up to handle a housing project like Homes for Iowa would eventually become.

“We went up to South Dakota with the council of governments and others and saw first-hand how they were doing it up there … They have been building houses like this for more than 20 years,” Clark said.

The Governor’s House program in South Dakota has its houses built at the Mike Durfee State Prison and then transported throughout the state, according to the South Dakota Housing Development Authority website.

Iowa has adopted this program and through the work by Homes for Iowa, Inc., the Iowa Department of Corrections, Iowa Prison Industries, the Councils of Government and the Newton Correctional Facilities real change will be made.

The Iowa Finance Authority announced its contribution to Homes for Iowa during the ceremony Thursday.

“The Iowa Finance Authority is proud to have awarded Homes for Iowa $1.2 Million dollars to assist in the construction of the first 20 homes that will soon be underway at this location,” Debi Durham, director of IFA/Iowa Economic Development Authority, said.

Officials hope the Homes for Iowa project will reduce the recidivism rates of inmates when they are released from incarceration.

“What we know is that employment is a pathway to desistance and we are hoping with building these skills and getting them livable wages and jobs in their field that they will be more connected to their communities,” Beth Skinner, director of Iowa Department of Corrections, said.

It is important that the inmates will be able to gain useful skills through the program that can translate to success outside the walls of a prison, rather than unsteady income that could lead to recidivism.

“It is so important and I am such a strong believer in second chances. The more that we can prepare them for success the more successful they will be when they leave prison and move back into society,” Reynolds told the Newton Daily News Thursday.

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Contact Dustin Teays at

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