Bridgeport’s reentry office aims to emerge stronger out of COVID
BRIDGEPORT — As the coronavirus swept across Connecticut last year and many stayed home, Earl Bloodworth was instead driving around delivering masks and other personal protective equipment to incarcerated men and women finishing their sentences in local halfway houses.
“You don’t know if that saved a life or not,” recalled Rob Hebert, senior vice president of re- entry affairs for Career Resources, a workforce readiness and employment non- profit that runs a handful of halfway facilities. “That was yeoman’s work.”
And, Hebert said, it was a good example of Bloodworth’s quiet but persistent style as head of the city’s re- entry affairs program, helping inmates returning from prison readjust by finding work, housing, counseling and other needs.
“The stuff he does isn’t always seen,” Hebert said. “And he’s not a big promoter of himself.”
“He’s not a flamboyant person,” agreed City Councilman Ernie Newton, a Career Resources case worker and himself an exfelon. “He just gets the job done.”
More than 18 months since his September 2019 hiring — and after more than a year dealing with the job limitations of the COVID- 19 crisis — Bloodworth seems to have re- positioned the struggling re- entry office for good things.
And he’s done it all while working remotely, with no staff — he is looking to fill an open clerical position — and unable to pursue a key goal of establishing in- person contact with people preparing for release.
Not only were municipal offices shuttered, but prisons ended visitations which “changed the whole landscape of what we’re trying to do,” Bloodworth said in an interview this week.
“Pretty much everything has been through email, phone and Zoom ( video conferencing),” Bloodworth continued. “My office was closed to individuals coming in. Then when we were let back in ( to Bridgeport’s downtown government center), due to precautions we still weren't having people in the building. If somebody did show up, I’d meet with them outside, masked up, six feet apart.”
Bloodworth has been readying the re- entry initiative for a post- COVID- 19 re- launch of sorts with several new programs.
One involves partnering with the state Department of Motor Vehicles to make it easier for clients to obtain identification/ a driver’s license.
The DMV did not return a request for comment, and Bloodworth emphasized, “We’re still in the process of putting together the details.”
“( But) I’ll give you an example. We had an individual locked down for 20 plus years, gets out of prison last summer,” Bloodworth said.
“He was 60 plus years old. No family, no nothing. He had a little check from whatever work he was doing in the prison, which you can’t cash because he has no ID, no birth certificate. ... What is he supposed to do?”
Bloodworth is also looking to establish a reunification program with part- time marriage/ family therapists and social workers to help ex- offenders and their relatives heal and strengthen relationships. He explained, “Often re- entry is focused on just the individual. But the whole family is kind of imprisoned with that individual.”
And Bloodworth is exploring aiding clients in expunging criminal records, inspired by a program in Detroit, Mich.
“We’re pretty excited about that,” said Scott Wilderman, president of Career Resources, adding of Bloodworth, “He’s been hustling. He really has.”
The reunification work will be funded through a $ 677,000 federal grant. A separate $ 10,000 grant from the U. S. Conference of Mayors will, Bloodworth said, be spent helping with identification needs.
That is a lot of money given the re- entry office was barely funded for its first few years of existence.
Having been convicted of federal corruption charges in 2003 after a dozen years running Bridgeport, thenex- Mayor Joe Ganim waged a political comeback in 2015. And after voters granted him a second chance at his old job, Ganim launched the re- entry initiative in 2016 for the broader community.
The program operated with little to no additional staff from a small room in the rear of the government center and without an actual budget. Bloodworth is the third director hired in as many years. The first was arrested on charges unrelated to the job, and the second director, Eric Christmas, was let go.
Christmas, in an August, 2019 interview with Hearst Connecticut Media, complained, “I think I was doing an excellent job. They weren’t providing me with any resources whatsoever.”
Last year, the City Council agreed to allot the program its first real budget of around $ 270,000. That amount was again approved in the just- passed 2021- 22 fiscal plan which goes into effect July 1.
Another of Bloodworth’s ongoing priorities is addressing a long- standing criticism that the re- entry office kept poor records with no way to gauge its success. For example, in the budget request Bloodworth submitted earlier this year, under a “program highlights” section for detailing client data on referrals, employment, housing and health/ education placement, it reads “N/ A” — not available — for the years before Bloodworth’s arrival.
Bloodworth said this week he has 700 to 800 case files he has been uploading into an easily accessible database, “So whether I’m here for the duration, somebody else steps in, or as we gain staff, there’s information we can aggregate and look at how many people have been served, demographics, ethnicity, level of education.”
And, he added, it will also allow the office to follow up with former clients, “See where they’re at, do they still need help, were they re- incarcerated?”
His budget request shows 43 clients registered in fiscal year 2019- 20 — which began July 1, 2019. Twenty- six found employment and seven housing. Of the 39 clients registered during the last six months of 2020, four found jobs and four housing.
“During the pandemic, I was working three times as hard just trying to figure out resources to get people into,” Bloodworth said, referring to how COVID- 19 shuttered businesses and forced people to stay home. “You’re talking about individuals coming out in a vulnerable position in the first place. ... They’re coming out in the middle of a pandemic.”
Newton and Councilman Scott Burns co- chair the council’s budget committee which met with Bloodworth last month. Burns this week said, “The sense is he made some progress and laid the groundwork to make the mission viable.
“There’s definitely support to say, ‘ Yeah, let’s give the guy a chance to keep working at it,’” Burns said. “My quick take was it seemed like ( the re- entry office) is going in too many directions for one person. But if it means ending up on a few tracks that are very effective, that’s good.”
Hebert also noted that Bloodworth has substantial contacts in the prison system and in re- entry and is “here, there and everywhere trying to make sure Bridgeport stays relevant in the state conversation, trying to bring money.”
But Hebert said he fears Bloodworth can only be a one- man operation and keep up that pace for so long.
“I hope he gets some help,” Hebert said. “I don’t know how sustainable it is.”