Manhattan nonprofit puts stimulus funds to use

Felons are finding a way to become productive citizens again—thanks to a federally-funded jobs training program.

Since receiving $440,803 from the federal government's stimulus funds, Episcopal Social Services has begun a program to provide green job training and job placement to individuals who have recently been released from New York State's penitentiary system.

The Network Therapeutic Reentry/Green Collar Training Program teaches job skills useful in “green-collar” jobs, such as retrofitting or installing environmentally-friendly roofs. The program is one of the ESS's Network in the Prisons/Network in the Community programs, based in the Bronx, which help men and women who have recently been released from prison.

The New York State Department of Labor granted ESS the money in connection with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The contract was finalized in December, so classes began in late February. The stimulus funds are mostly supporting the skills training, according to Anne Williams, director of the Network programs.

“Since the bulk of the funds is used to cover participant training and participant travel, funding from other sources must be used to cover salaries, supplies and rental expenses” which the stimulus only partly funded, said Williams.

She said private donations from individuals and foundations cover the rest of the expenses.

“Since stable employment is a solid predictor of avoidance of recidivism,” according to an ESS
document dated Oct. 2009, “Network has consistently made immediate intervention and rapid job placement a priority. Of all required reentry services, this is the hardest one to deliver.”

Among the figures provided by Williams:
•    Nine people have finished the training
•    57 are in green-collar training
•    25 people who received job readiness counseling have been placed in jobs
•    Nine more people are in the process of being placed

These are 100 former prison inmates who are better equipped to get a job—a hard thing for felons. According to a table of state government data, just 61 percent of New York State's employable probationers had jobs by the end of 2009, compared to 91 percent employment of New York's general public. The Network's job training hopes to counter that.

The Network programs have proven their success before in fighting felons' general fate. Network's other programs have yielded a seven percent recidivism rate, said Williams, while in general New York offenders have a 39.9 percent recidivism rate, according to a New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services report issued in March 2008.

The Network programs are teaming up with Sustainable South Bronx, a community organization that looks for economically stable projects that solve environmental problems, and with STRIVE, an organization that has provided vocational training to poor or less-educated men and women since 1984.

“I was thrilled,” said Williams, to receive the stimulus grant. She had applied for $500,000. “I had long wanted to be able to offer this kind of training to men and women coming home with so many qualities and skills and developed character,” said Williams.