The Ex-Offender's Re-Entry Assistance Directory: Public and Private Support Programs for Making It on the Outside

By Ron L. Krannich

Designed to assist ex-offenders and re-entry professionals with critical transition decisions, this directory introduces users to a fascinating re-entry world focused on documentation, housing, employment, transportation, food, clothing, wellness, mental health, substance abuse, education, parenting, and personal finances. Filled with names, addresses, phone numbers, websites, and downloadable resources of key government agencies, nonprofit groups, and faith-based organizations, this is a “must have” directory for anyone involved with re-entry programs and resources as well as for those interested in developing their own “what works” programs. Special features include: 39 gateway re-entry websites, 1,000+ state re-entry assistance programs, and 50 free downloadable re-entry handbooks and curricula. A rich collection of six appendices includes an assessment test and several planning/implementation devises.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Impact Publications
• Release date: May 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781570233807

Book preview

Preface

IT’S NOT SURPRISING – most people in transition face numerous challenges to getting ahead. Encountering a variety of taxing re-entry games, ex-offenders have to first figure out the rules and understand any barriers before they can become serious players. Lacking such knowledge is a sure way to experience frustration and failure with the whole transition process.

Tough Challenges

Ex-offenders must handle many difficult transition issues as they move from the darkness of prison to the sunshine of freedom. Unlike newly minted college graduates, transitioning military, relocating spouses and clergy, or retirees flush with resources for enjoying a jobless life, ex-offenders face a variety of legal, financial, and social barriers that can cloud their future. For many, dark clouds seem to follow them everywhere.

Not used to making decisions on their own, most ex-offenders are mentally unprepared for what comes next. After all, they’ve just completed a rather chilling and costly gig behind bars as an inmate where they experienced a combination of fear, distrust, fragile hope, boredom, grief, and depression. They are now newly released ex-cons with all the baggage that label implies. Their correctional experience was all about survival inside the prison walls rather than preparation for success in the free world.

Indeed, most ex-offenders need help from Day One in making it on the outside. Being released with only the clothes on their back, $10 to $200 in gate money, a few sketchy relationships, unstable housing and employment, most ex-offenders now face costly housing, inconvenient transportation, lack of money and credit, a discriminatory job market, and a highly digitized world requiring Internet access and skills. Saddled with questionable resumes and rap sheets, ex-offenders experience numerous rejections that can lead to failed re-entry experiences.

It’s not a pretty picture as many ex-offenders, including incarcerated military veterans, quickly join America’s marginalized population of poor and homeless people who more or less manage to live a desperate existence on the edge of society. What they most need are helping hands to get them through their first 99 days of re-entry challenges to jumpstart their lives rather than become another recidivism statistic.

Helping Hands

Helping hands are what this directory is all about. Designed to assist ex-offenders and re-entry professionals with critical transition decisions, it introduces users to a fascinating re-entry world focused on:

■ Documentation

■ Housing

■ Employment

■ Transportation

■ Food

■ Clothing

■ Health and wellness

■ Mental health

■ Substance abuse

■ Education

■ Parenting

■ Personal finances

■ Life skills

■ Relationship building

■ Victim restitution

■ Tattoo removal

Filled with names, addresses, phone numbers, websites, and downloadable resources of key government agencies, nonprofit groups, and faith-based organizations, this directory is designed for anyone involved with re-entry programs and resources as well as for those interested in developing their own what works programs.

Words of Hope and Caution

This directory identifies major efforts at tackling one of today’s most daunting problems – how to ensure the safe and productive integration of the more than 700,000 individuals who annually leave prisons, along with the nearly 12 million individuals who circulate in and out of jails and detention centers. Identifying major players, it reveals what is actually being done state-by-state at the street level to better deal with the vexing problems of recidivism and collateral damage in America’s dysfunctional criminal justice system. As such, this directory offers a snapshot of the state of re-entry in America as of 2016 with these major highlights:

■ 39 gateway websites focused on everything from housing to employment

■ 1,000+ re-entry assistance programs operating in each state

■ 50 free downloadable re-entry handbooks and curricula designed for use in 28 states and nationwide

Compiling a directory rich in names, addresses, telephone numbers, and websites is a risky and sometimes funny business. And doing a directory that primarily includes government agencies, nonprofit groups, and faith-based organizations is doubly risky. While I have attempted to ensure the accuracy of the entries, nonetheless, many of these players will change locations and some will go out of business in the coming months. Indeed, while conducting research for this directory, several organizations changed addresses and telephone numbers, discontinued websites, or changed critical resource linkages. One nonprofit in Iowa was even raided by the FBI soon after receiving a $1.5 million government contract for delivering re-entry services (that one didn’t make this directory)! Others changed addresses and modified their missions, because they recently experienced funding cuts, which is a common experience with nonprofit groups and faith-based organizations that are greatly dependent upon government largesse to fund their activities and operations. Living contract-to-contract or grant-to-grant is a very risky business that creates a great deal of uncertainty about the future of many well-intentioned organizations designed to work with marginalized populations.

When you find an inoperative website, telephone number, or mailing address, I recommend you do the following rather than contact me or the publisher with a it doesn’t exist or it’s a bad entry complaint:

Look for the organization by searching for it in two different ways:

■ If the website address doesn’t take you to the site, try searching for it again by entering the organization name, address, and/or phone number.

■ If the web address has an extension beyond the web suffix, which is often the problem, shorten it to the initial domain address, which will end in .com, .org, .net, or some other website suffix.

Search for the organization on the Internet by using more than one search engine. Your best results will come from these search and meta search engines:

■ Google

■ Bing

■ Yahoo

■ Ask.com

■ DuckDuckGo

■ Dogpile

■ iSeek

If you only use one web browser, try switching to an alternative web browser that may yield better web searches:

■ Google Chrome

■ Mozilla Firefox

■ Safari

■ Opera

■ Internet Explorer

Complete the Recommended Re-Entry Resources form (Appendix G) and fax or email it to me for my reference (Fax [phone] or [e-mail]). Please do the same if you come across re-entry resources that are not listed in this directory but which you feel should be included in future editions.

Annotated Entries

I’ve purposefully not annotated the re-entry entries in Chapter 4 since most of these organizations are well represented on their websites, which are identified in most cases. Annotating such entries would be redundant and most likely misleading. After all, many of these organizations will change their focus and emphases as their missions and funding change accordingly.

Thanks

I especially want to thank the many ex-offender re-entry players featured in this directory, particularly those representing gateway organizations in Chapter 2 and developers of the many re-entry handbooks, workbooks, directories, curricula, and databases featured in Chapter 5. These organizations are literally working America’s re-entry trenches with many helping hands designed to transform the lives of ex-offenders in transition. Many have developed programs and products that can serve as models for others interested in the re-entry process.

Many thanks go to three individuals who spent numerous hours engaged in often mind-numbing and thankless tasks – checking the accuracy of entries, proofing for errors, and deciphering my almost illegible handwritten notes and sometimes difficult instructions on what goes where: Carol Cable, Ruth Sanders, and Mardie Younglof. However, any errors of commission or omission are solely my responsibility.

Finally, I want to thank my many readers who are passionate about creating more effective re-entry policies and practices. They understand the tremendous human and economic costs of a criminal justice system that is primarily designed to catch and release individuals with little thought to the collateral costs of its actions nor the importance of developing powerful re-entry approaches for marginalized individuals and vulnerable communities. May they continue their good works in offering helping hands to those in need of special friends and mentors.

1

A Leg Up, A Hand Down

WHETHER THEY ADMIT IT or not, ex-offenders need help in navigating the next stages of their lives. Moving from depressing concrete and steel cages to unfamiliar roads that fork in many different directions, these hopeful souls search for renewed freedom and independence in a not-so-friendly and often unforgiving world that values trust, stability, predictability, and workplace skills. In many cases, they leave prison as destitute, disturbed, and delusional people who also appear to be risky losers saddled with questionable rap sheets and debilitating financial obligations. Feeling hopeful but encountering numerous barriers to success, their future is anything but certain.

Welcome to the Free World

Facing the sunshine of freedom with a recent history of daily lockdown, many ex-offenders enter the free world with only the clothes on their back, some measly gate money ($10 to $200), a few sketchy relationships, and, often, not much love. Most are unprepared for an increasingly digitized world. They face a costly housing market and a demanding job market focused on skills, accomplishments, and learning. Many newly released ex-offenders begin their journey to freedom with a ride on a Greyhound bus to, hopefully, a more promising future. If they’re lucky, they may encounter some good samaritans willing to extend helping hands with housing and employment, the two most immediate needs of ex-offenders.

Welcome to the real world where living a disappointing, and filled with barriers to getting ahead.

What happens next is anyone’s guess. It could be good, but it’s often disappointing for everyone involved. Welcome to the real world where living a free life can be hard, disappointing, and filled with barriers to getting ahead. Indeed, according to an Urban Institute study of soon-to-be-released state prison inmates, many ex-offenders enter the outside world with several strikes against them:

■ 75% have substance abuse problems

■ 70% are high school dropouts

■ 50% are functionally illiterate

■ 21% have a work-related disability

■ 18% have Hepatitis C

■ 15% have a mental illness

■ 12% report a vision or hearing problem

■ 7% have a tuberculosis infection

■ 4% show signs of PTSD

■ 3% are HIV-positive or have AIDS

■ 3% participate in work-release programs

Within three years, nearly 70 percent of ex-offenders don’t make it on the outside primarily because of parole violations. After all, many ex-offenders re-enter society with limited education, few marketable skills, negative attitudes, mental health issues, and scary rap sheets. They are in desperate need of a support structure on the outside.

On their own, many ex-offenders look and behave like losers. Unfortunately, most soon expand their rap sheets as they return to jails and prisons to do more mind-numbing and expensive taxpayer-sponsored time. This revolving door is not a pretty picture for a troubled criminal justice system ostensibly tasked with dispensing justice and transforming lives through rehabilitation. Indeed, it’s a classic broken system mainly run by and for broken people.

Welcome to the re-entry world where hope is often the latest victim of a treacherous system gone awry. The best way to navigate this system is to take advantage of the many helping hands featured in this user-friendly directory. As you increasingly become street-smart in the free world, you may well be able to keep hope alive and never again return to another house of cages. In so doing, you will begin building a support system that will truly set you free and help you create a new and meaningful life of joy, love, and accomplishment.

Hope for Better Days

Expected to stay clean and pull themselves up by their bootstraps, these newly minted freedom-seekers all of a sudden find life on the outside to be somewhat bipolar – simultaneously exciting, interesting, unfamiliar, and scary. Regardless of which road they take, ex-cons find most pathways filled with challenges, paved with potholes, lined with quicksand, and punctuated with dead ends, rejections, and hopelessness. Faced with numerous barriers to re-entry success, they soon realize that navigating this road can be rough and tough. They could use some help along the way.

Most pathways for ex-cons are filled with challenges, paved with potholes, lined with quicksand, and punctuated with dead ends, rejections, and hopelessness.

As many newly released inmates discover, the free world is anything but free, especially if you don’t know where you’re going or whom to trust! Navigating this road requires smart decisions for moving ahead in the right direction. Above all, successful re-entry demands new knowledge and skills as well as a changed mindset about how the outside world really operates.

Primary Audience

While this directory will be widely used by re-entry professionals and others who are in the business of helping ex-offenders transition to the free world, it’s first and foremost designed for ex-offenders and their families in need of helping hands. As such, it speaks to ex-offenders’ most pressing street-level needs: jobs, housing, food, clothing, transportation, health care, education, counseling, documentation, and services related to substance abuse, mental health, child care, banking, and financial planning. For in the end, it is these ostensibly resurrected souls who will benefit the most from the many pages of re-entry information and advice found in this book.

Legs Up, Hands Down

Making it on the outside requires both legs up and hands down. The legs up come from you and the hands down come from others. Prerequisites for re-entry success include these three things you’ll need to do on a routine basis:

Project a persistently positive attitude

Engage in purposeful hard work

Acquire support from others

While this directory may not help you much in projecting a positive attitude and instilling purposeful hard work (two legs up) – both of which are within your control – it does show you how and where to get assistance from others who can provide you with a helping hand (a hand down) on your road to independence and freedom.

The following pages are all about developing a powerful support network to get you through the important initial stages of your re-entry transition. This book is your connection to the outside world of helping hands. Whatever you do, don’t try to do this re-entry stuff on your own. Lone wolves can become very isolated, lonely, frustrated, and angry when things don’t work according to expectations or when they encounter seemingly insurmountable barriers to success. At the same time, you don’t want to be a beggar who becomes totally dependent upon others for assistance. Ideally, your job is to find the best resources to help you jump-start your transition to the free world where you will eventually become independent of such assistance as well as later provide a helping hand (mentor) to others who find themselves in similar re-entry situations.

Run with Wise and Empathetic People

Wisely use the resources outlined in this directory. In so doing, you should be able to significantly shorten your re-entry adjustment time and, in the process,