The stigma of incarceration and helping state’s residents
As a 21-year-old mother of two young children, I was arrested for protecting myself and my children from an intruder in my home. Two years later, I was found guilty of manslaughter II and sentenced to 10 years in prison. I have been out of prison for almost 23 years. My criminal record has made it incredibly difficult to obtain a job and access affordable housing.
I know I am not alone, as thousands previously incarcerated residents in Connecticut face similar obstacles. Rather than silently enduring this discrimination, I decided to become an activist and dedicate my life to giving voice to those returning to their communities after incarceration. This work includes tackling issues such as restorative justice, prison and pardon reform, housing, reentry, substance abuse treatment and custodial parental rights.
While all of these issues are crucial, the issue of housing discrimination has been one of my priorities as all of us deserve a safe, affordable place to live. In recent evaluations of Hartford’s Reentry Welcome Center, access to housing was the greatest challenge people faced. Without stable housing, it is difficult for people to attend training programs or to hold a job. Research has shown that having stable housing reduces the risk of recidivism and enhances public safety. Unfortunately, housing options for returning citizens are often extremely limited as many of us are rejected from private, public and subsidized housing based on our criminal record. I know first-hand how the stigma of incarceration and discrimination continues long after we have served our time, and undermines our ability to secure housing, education and employment necessary to successfully reenter the community.
To make a change, a small group of us created Once Incarcerated Anonymous to raise the voices of returning citizens to advocate for policies that will allow us to fully participate in society. OIA has created a partnership with Second Chance Re-entry Initiative Program to launch a leadership development training program to individuals who have completed SCRIP’S academic, social, counseling, expert-mentoring and networking development program. Through this effort, we hope to provide additional support to returning citizens by educating and building a diverse and strong coalition of individuals to help organize, provide testimony and contribute to the development of advocacy materials. Providing people with experience and with the training and confidence to engage in public policy work is the best way to ensure that real changes can be made to ensure we all have access to housing, jobs, health care and other support we need.
To provide this training, we have sought to connect people returning from incarceration to housing advocacy organizations to learn about the legislative process and create an inclusive advocacy campaign to change policies that discriminate against formerly incarcerated people. A key part of this effort is to make more Section 8 vouchers available, specifically for the justice-impacted or formerly incarcerated people with criminal records. Work also involves developing inclusionary language for people with criminal records under antidiscrimination laws and requiring public housing authorities to adopt more inclusive policies.
As part of one of our first training sessions, we heard about the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s program to review existing federal housing policies to make comprehensive changes to protect and create more housing opportunities for previously incarcerated men and women. While this provides hope that meaningful changes will be made, we will continue to work to empower previously incarcerated individuals to advocate on the local, state and national level to ensure we all have a home of our own to build a better life for ourselves and our families.