In Las Animas, Colorado, a former prison now provides shelter for homeless people in the first state-funded facility of its kind. The 500-acre Fort Lyon Correctional Facility in southern Colorado was repurposed and opened three months ago as a place to help homeless from fifteen Colorado counties permanently leave the streets. Residents must abstain from drugs and alcohol, take classes at a nearby Otero Junior College, and work on such jobs as fixing up the facility or raising chickens. Once residents finish a one or two-year program, they are guaranteed a voucher for housing.  James Ginsburg, the program director for the Colorado Commission for the Homeless, says that not only will the facility help homeless turn their lives around, it should save taxpayers money, too—it costs $17,000 per person a year, versus the average $36,000 each homeless person costs taxpayers a year.