A report released Friday highlighted the high needs of many individuals returning from incarceration in Connecticut, from mental health support to education, housing and other needs.
The annual “State of Reentry” report, published by three nonprofits that provide services to formerly incarcerated people in the state, found that of the roughly 1,000 people whose sentences ended between June and December of last year, half had a “serious or extremely serious” problem with substance abuse and about a third had a mental health disorder classified as “moderate or serious.” c
A larger proportion, 65%, did not have a high school diploma. Scott Wilderman, president and CEO of Career Resources in Bridgeport — one of the organizations behind the report — said the lack of education and job training experience was a serious problem. The proportion in this year’s report hadn’t changed from where it stood a year ago and it was up from the 2023 measure of 62%.
“We as a state should be ashamed of that number,” Wilderman told a group of lawmakers, nonprofit executives and business owners gathered for the announcement of the report’s findings at the Capitol Friday. “We need to start investing more money and more funding into getting adult basic ed and GED programs. That’s the foundation. The greatest equalizer in anything is education.”
Housing is also a huge challenge, the report found. According to the Department of Correction, about one in five incarcerated individuals who were released between June 1, 2023 and May 31, 2024 were homeless at the time of their release. For people who arrived at reentry centers, that number was higher — 72% of clients of reentry welcome centers across the state reported having unstable housing situations.
Reentry welcome centers help connect people with housing, health and education resources. But at the event Friday, reentry center directors said if federal coronavirus relief funds — which are set to expire on June 30 — aren’t replaced with state dollars, they may have to make significant cuts to the services they offer.
“A lot of us relied heavily on [the funds],” Wilderman told CT Mirror. He said the center he runs which he opened three years ago, has relied almost entirely on federal coronavirus dollars.
Leaders at the state’s reentry centers are asking the legislature for $1.5 million annually to help maintain their operations. Capital Workforce Partners, a job training nonprofit that copublished the report, is asking for $3 million a year to support workforce programs throughout the state.
Beth Hines, the executive director of Community Partners in Action, said her organization would have to cut services if it doesn’t receive replacement funds for the federal dollars. But she said she’s not exactly sure what or how much would have to be cut.
In to operating a halfway house, Hines’ nonprofit provides clients with gift cards for food, clothing vouchers, cell phones and “reentry backpacks” filled with hygiene products. She said the organization can also help clients secure housing by providing money for a security deposit and first month’s rent.
“Oftentimes … the people that are coming to the centers are the ones that don’t have family to go home to. Nobody’s waiting in the parking lot for them at the prison to take them home. These are people that have no one. They’ve burnt every bridge,” she told CT Mirror.
Hines noted that many of the clients they receive at the reentry centers have some of the highest needs of any incarcerated individuals. But she said paying for these services was far less expensive than incarceration, which costs the state $100,000 per incarcerated individual per year.
The likelihood of returning to prison among people who’ve sought services from these nonprofits isn’t clear. James Boucher, the chief strategy officer with Capital Workforce Partners, said people involved in the justice system who participated in his organization’s program were 50% less likely to end up back in prison.
Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam echoed this. “Do we want to pay on the back end to fix the brokenness of a society that refuses to invest in reentry? Or do we want to pay on the front end to create the society we want to create? It’s the same money, but it’s a choice of where we choose to invest,” said Arulampalam.
According to the report, 94% of the people scheduled to be released between June and December of 2024 had less than five years’ worth of employment experience.
Robert Hebert, chief strategic officer for Career Resources, told those gathered at the Capitol on Friday that it takes people an average of six months to secure a job after returning from incarceration, and that their starting salary is often lower than the income level considered necessary for household survival. Hebert said vocational training can be a way for people to raise their earning capacity.
Waterbury Mayor Paul Pernerewski said that, in Waterbury, they train formerly incarcerated people in manufacturing and then connect them with local manufacturers, who are looking for workers.
“ There’s nothing wrong with flipping hamburgers, but that’s not the way that you’re going to stay out of recidivism. You need a good job,” said Pernerewski.
Two years ago, the Department of Correction dropped Luis Maldonado at the door of Community Partners in Action in Hartford. Maldonado, who had been incarcerated for 15 years, was told he would be staying at the organization’s halfway house.
Two days later, he got a job working as a dishwasher at the Pond House Cafe. And three months later, Maldonado got connected with Chrysalis, a community assistance agency in Hartford. Chrysalis helped him find an apartment, provided him with food and offered him the chance to train to become a chef.
“ [It] puts smiles on people, because [the food] looks nice. And then when you taste [it], they’re like, ‘Oh my God, this is good.’ They want more. So that to me is the best experience in the world,” Maldonado told the Connecticut Mirror.
Today, Maldonado works three jobs — washing dishes at the Pond House, as a chef at Chrysalis’ restaurant, La Cocina, and fixing things for his landlord. He’s in the process of starting his own food truck.
It was Capital Workforce Partners that helped Lemuel Santana find his current job as a traffic flagger in Hartford.
Santana, now 42, spent 25 years in and out of prison since his first arrest at age 14. He said that he’d first heard of the organization at age 17, but he didn’t take the idea seriously at the time. As he got older, that changed, he said. “I just realized that I had to stop lying to myself, stop lying to people and take my life very seriously,” he told CT Mirror.
He explored masonry at first, and ended up taking a job as a traffic flagger on construction sites. Santana now has his own apartment in Hartford, he said, and he makes $48 per hour as a flagger. “I like being in the streets, talking to the people,” he said. “It’s mad fun.”
Santana and Maldonado both urged people coming out of incarceration to take advantage of the available programs.
“Go to these programs,” Santana said. “Don’t think that these jobs [are] not good enough for you. Because if not, all these years are going to go by [with] you saying, ‘I haven’t been working. I don’t got a job.’”
This article first appeared on CT Mirror and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
