Advocates say the case of a man trying to secure a place to live after being released from prison sheds light on the need for the state to fund halfway houses.

The Democratic governor signed House Bill 531 in a ceremony in Chicago Monday after the measure, which passed both chambers of the Statehouse in 2018, idled for a few months before being signed this week.

Jaylan Banks and Sylvester Williams were nearing the end of their juvenile sentences at a youth facility in Harrisburg, Illinois in the spring of 2017 when they found themselves flung directly into multiyear sentences in the adult corrections system following altercations with guards.