Michelle Liu Photo
Thames pitching Dwight.
With a loss of state funding looming, one of New Haven’s prison re-entry programs is looking to secure a community development block grant from the city to ensure it can keep providing services to newly-released inmates.
Darryl Thames and Pam Linder of Easter Seals Goodwill Industries dropped by the Dwight community management team meeting Tuesday night, looking for the team’s support as they await approval of the grant request, which would keep Easter Seals’ re-entry service center at 95 Hamilton St. afloat for another year.
“As of July, I will lose funding for all but one case manager,” Thames said.
Severe budget cuts to social services across the state in recent months as well as a looming $1.5 billion state budget deficit mean there’s no guarantee of state funding beyond June 30, 2017, the last day Thames can afford the program’s two case managers and one community advocate position. So Easter Seals is looking for some $119,000 from the city to pay for one caseworker and the community advocate for a year starting in July 2017.
These positions are essential to the work Easter Seals does, Thames said. While many associate the not-for-profit with work it does with the developmentally disabled, Easter Seals has also provided re-entry services to New Haven residents for over a decade, serving about 125 men and women a year.
These services are focused upon the Dwight, Dixwell, Newhallville, the Hill and Fair Haven neighborhoods, Linder said — where the majority of formerly incarcerated individuals returning to New Haven go to.
The state deposits an estimated 25 newly released inmates into New Haven each week.
In collaborating with the state Department of Corrections and the city, the Easter Seals program provides case management services — like housing assistance and substance abuse treatment — to reduce recidivism.
Linder: It’s important community work.
Linder, the program coordinator, said the community advocate position is crucial to retain: The job is currently staffed by an individual who was once incarcerated for 21 years then “came out and turned his life around.”
“We have some legitimacy,” Linder said. “We’re not just a bunch of people who have no idea what it’s like to be incarcerated. He’s been there, done that.”
Dwight alder Frank Douglass, who chairs the Board of Alders’ Community Development Committee, noted that he was familiar with the grant application (submitted in October) at hand.
Community management team Chair Florita Gillespie asked why Easter Seals hadn’t approached the team earlier.
Thames acknowledged the short notice. He said he is diligently making the rounds now. Like many not-for-profits hit by the state cuts, his learning to “do more with less,” he said.
