Program set to help get jobs for 10K exoffenders

The Connecticut NAACP and state officials are hoping to find 10,000 jobs for formerly incarcerated individuals in the next three years.

Connecticut is a pilot state for the NAACP’s national “Million Jobs” campaign to get major businesses on board with hiring former inmates who will receive training that actually leads to a job, said Scot X. Esdaile, president of the Connecticut NAACP and the chair of the national NAACP Criminal Justice Committee.

“There are a lot of people dealing with addiction services, housing issues, mental health issues, but no one is dealing with the jobs issue,” Esdaile said. “The number one social program out there is a job.”

Esdaile and more than 100 business leaders and state officials, including Gov. Ned Lamont, met Tuesday to start planning the implementation of the program which they hope to launch by midSeptember.

As a national NAACP board member and the chair of the organization’s Criminal Justice Committee, Esdaile volunteered to pilot the “Million Jobs” campaign in his home state.

“Community agencies are doing training, training, training, but there’s no job at the end,” Esdaile said. “We’re tired of these games.”

Having a stable job is the key to success once a formerly incarcerated individual is released, according to Department of Correction Commissioner Rollin Cook.

“We have folks in the community looking for work,” Cook said. “Employment and housing are two keys things people need to be successful.”

But the problem is businesses are uninformed about how hard formerly incarcerated individuals work and what they have to offer, he said. “It is already proven that those who have that foundation are less likely to recidivate. The biggest challenge is finding large companies who will give them a chance.”

Cook was with representatives from some of the state’s largest companies during the meeting held at the office of Mark Ojakian, president of the Connecticut State Colleges and University System. Cook envisions a program that would allow employees from companies that are willing to hire former inmates to provide training at state correction facilities before inmates are released.

“We think it would be great to bring employees inside to provide training specifically for the jobs they are looking for,” Cook said.

Cook was on hand at the meeting along with representatives from Stanley Black & Decker, Walgreens, CVS, Lyft, Electric Boat, Aetna, Turner Construction, the Connecticut Hospital Association, YaleNew Haven Hospital and Yale University, and nearly two dozen other companies that all have expressed interest in participating.

The group is hoping to find 10,000 jobs for formerly incarcerated individuals in the next three years. The number is derived from population figures, Esdaile said. There are about 300 million people in the United States with 3 million in Connecticut, which makes up about 1 percent of the country’s population. That 1 percent translates to 10,000 jobs for the purposes of doing the state’s part to help create one million jobs nationwide, he said.

Esdaile and the Connecticut NAACP is hoping to tap into its ties with state officials, churches, barbershops, and other community organizations to get the word out that the program will start in midSeptember.

A website will list businesses that are looking for employees and people will be able to click on the link for a particular job and apply, he said. “Every time they hire someone they will notify us and put it on the website so people can see which companies are participating and how many people they have hired.”

It’s good fiscal policy on both ends, Esdaile said, adding that “recidivism is killing our state. If 10,000 people are hired, they aren’t going back to jail, which is an expense, and they are paying taxes.”

The goal is to ultimately provide training in the specific jobs needed in the state’s prisons so people will have employment lined up the minute they are released, Esdaile said.

“We can train people directly for the job rather than training that doesn’t carry a meaningful result,” he added.

Cook conceded that while the state’s prison system offers job training, there isn’t a mechanism to get people jobs when they are released. There are also barriers including a box on a job application that requires anyone with a criminal conviction to disclose their conviction.

Although it’s early in the campaign cycle for congressional races, several GOP candidates already are running to unseat Connecticut’s Democratic incumbents.

Tommy Gilmer, 28, a commercial roofer from Madison, is running for the 2nd District seat that has been held since 2007 by Rep. Joe Courtney.

“As a young millennial who has decided to buy a home in Connecticut, this is the best way to double down on my commitment to the state,” Gilmer said of his decision to run for Congress.

Although he’s never run for Congress before, Gilmer said he has had an interest in politics since he was a child, and ran for a school board seat in Cleveland, Ohio, against his girlfriend’s father when he was 18.

Ruben Rodriguez is a Waterbury Republican seeking to unseat Rep. Jahana Hayes.

To Gilmer, the sprawling, mostly rural “Quiet Corner” of Connecticut is different from other parts of the state and has special needs, including a greater emphasis on worker training and special programs in high school to turn out skilled workers.

“This is a workingclass place,” Gilmer said of the area he hopes to represent in the U.S. House.

Rodriguez did not wait for much more than a month after Rep. Jahana Hayes was sworn in to represent the 5th District before he decided to challenge the Democrat freshman.

Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Rodriguez said he has been involved in politics since he was 12 years old, when he helped his father run a neighborhood organization in the town of Jayuya.

But he acknowledges that Connecticut politics “are a little bit different than in Puerto Rico.”

Rodriguez , 42, moved to Connecticut almost 20 years ago and, if elected, would be the first Latino representing the state in Congress. He currently works for the City of New Britain as a meter technician for the city’sWater Department.

A formerWaterbury city plan commissioner, Rodriguez ran unsuccessfully in 2014 for a seat in the General Assembly.

He said he is disappointed in Hayes’ support for the Green New Deal.

“We know it’s a bad deal,” he said.

Former assistant U.S. attorney David Xavier Sullivan from New Fairfield also is trying to unseat Hayes.

Sullivan, 59, retired from the Justice Department at the end of June after 30 years of service. He filed his candidacy with the Federal Elections Commission a few days later.

Incumbents such as Hayes, who lives inWolcott, usually are most vulnerable in their first bid for reelection.

But Hayes had more than $600,000 in her campaign war chest as of March 31, and has been identified by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee as one of 44 House Democrats who will receive special help through the organization’s Frontline Program, which is aimed at helping the most vulnerable incumbents.

Contributed photos