(NewsNation) — For American prisoners, life behind bars often serves as a poor preparation for life after being released from incarceration. Reintegration into society can be difficult, as ex-prisoners are often on their own when it comes to finding housing, employment and other necessities.
In prison, “Basically all you have to do is stay alive, you know what I mean? And survive all the craziness that’s going on in there,” says a former prisoner named Marcus Nunn in a recent documentary. “You don’t have to pay bills. You don’t have to buy food. They feed you three times a day, even if the food is crap. But when you come back to society, it’s the real world. All those things you didn’t have to do for decades, now you have to do them.
But Nunn was helped with her comeback by an Oakland-based nonprofit called Impact Justice. For the past four years, Impact Justice has run the Homecoming project, which aims to help ex-convicts reintegrate into society.
“When people come out of prison, they have very few housing options. Typically housing is transitional housing or congregate care housing which can often feel like another extension of a prison system where they have very few options and very few freedoms too as they return in the community,” said Aishatu Yusuf, who serves as vice president of innovation programs at Impact Justice.
This is where the Homecoming Project offers an alternative, paying landlords to bring in someone who has just been released from jail or jail, the same way customers pay to book a room in someone’s home. one through websites such as Airbnb.
“What we do is we take community homes – so if you have a room inside your home that you’re willing to let us use, we pay you around $40 a day for up to six months to house someone coming out of prison,” says Yusuf.
The grant, provided by the program, covers rent and utilities; it is up to the attendee and host to discuss how groceries and food purchases will be obtained.
The program provides participants with access to safe and affordable housing in an expensive neighborhood where some housing advocates believe that a tenant would need an hourly income of $43.73 to afford a two-bedroom apartment.
The organization makes sure to screen houses before making investments. The selection process includes matchmaking sessions where hosts and potential guests get to know each other before housing arrangements are finalized. Once residing in a house, participants are should watch for employment and/or education.
Once a resident is placed in a home, the Homecoming Project pairs them with a community navigator whose job it is to work with them to identify the resources they need to help them reintegrate into society. The community navigator will work to match residents with, for example, employment or legal services.
Many traditional halfway houses are considered an extension of the criminal justice system, where residents are often subject to strict surveillance and/or curfews. For Nunn, whose journey has been documented by German documentary television program Galileothe experience in a Homecoming Project home was liberating.
In the documentary, he pointed to his pantry, microwave and stove.
“After eating food in prison for 31 years, now being able to cook my own meals, you know, is really a blessing,” he said.
Since its inception, the Homecoming Project has placed approximately 85 participants in homes in Alameda and Contra Costa counties in California.
For Yusuf, one of the program’s brightest spots has been its success in preventing recidivism among ex-prisoners.
“Our program has a zero percent recidivism rate,” she said, with the caveat that they haven’t yet tracked outcomes for residents two or three years after leaving the program.
Still, she noted that getting hosts into the program can be a challenge.
“It’s a scary request to let someone into your personal space, but also someone who has a stigma for who they are,” she said.
To help recruiting efforts, the group recently brought in a local marketing firm.
Like many nonprofit programs, the Homecoming Project is also limited by the financial resources available to it. But the California legislature recently donated to Impact Justice the funding they hope will help expand the Homecoming project to Los Angeles.
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