Skip to main content

East Palo Alto Starts New Parollee Reentry Program

The Palo Alto Daily News reports:
When they are released into East Palo Alto, prison parolees will be offered an array of services designed to help them adjust to society and, it is hoped, avoid the kind of trouble that got them behind bars in the first place.

Thanks to a $3.3 million California Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections grant, the city will run a pilot parolee program over the next 3 1/2 years that is expected to aid about 120 parolees annually. The city, which already has about 200 parolees, signed a contract for the grant this week.

"I would say it has officially started," police Chief Ron Davis said.

If successful, the pilot program eventually could become the model for a statewide version, Assemblyman Ira Ruskin, who sponsored a bill authorizing the experiment, said.

Split into three phases, the program exacts various commitments from parolees, including 2,000 hours of community service work such as cleaning up graffiti or giving public speeches. Parolees also must take regular drug tests and visit program staff daily. In return, they can get help with obtaining housing, getting jobs, enrolling in school, or receiving substance abuse counseling and treatment.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

PageMill, Wells Fargo and Sam Zell

Dear Friends,  Normal.dotm 0 0 1 888 5066 Northern California Urban Development 42 10 6221 12.0 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false As many of you know we've been in discussion recently with Wells Fargo and Equity Residential, the proposed buyers of the former Pagemill Properties on the west side of East Palo Alto.  As an East Palo Alto resident and leader I view this issue, and how Wells Fargo handles this important portfolio as a milestone event for our community and it’s residents. First, a little background (from my perspective):  A few years ago over 80% of East Palo Alto's multi family housing stock was purchased piece by piece by a predator equity group, Pagemill Properties. After the purchase Pagemill began systematically dismantling our rent control ordinances and aggressively evicting working class families. The community was in shock. However, the Pagemill group went bankrupt in 2009 and lost the property to Wachovia,...
1 comment
Read more

Non Profit Payday Loans?

Here's a recent New York Times article sent to me from Katie at NCHM on payday lending. I know that the NCUD / CTCU-EPA partnership is going to have to create the right program addressing the needs for short term lending for low income families. We don't have the answers yet, but it's definitely on our radar. APPLETON, Wis. — This city of 70,000 has five McDonald’s franchises, three Pizza Huts, four Starbucks shops — and 19 payday loan stores, brightly lighted storefronts with names like EZ Money and Check Into Cash that offer two-week loans without credit checks. Peggy Truckey, 53, knows the allure. Last year she owed nearly $1,300 to four of those stores, and was paying about $600 a month in finance fees alone. “I thought I was going to have to take a second job just to pay off the interest,” Ms. Truckey said. Then she heard about a new nonprofit program operated out of a Goodwill thrift store, one of several hundred lower-cost payday loan products that are now bein...
7 comments
Read more

Untitled

Posted via email from JOHN's posterous
Post a Comment
Read more