Prisoner Re-Entry
Goes Hyperlocal

Since his release from prison in November after four years on drug charges, Stephen Carmichael has found only part-time landscaping and snow-shoveling work. With help from a prison re-entry program, he might be headed back to full-time work as a chef.

That’s what Carmichael was doing before he went to jail. And with an 11-year-old daughter to help support, it’s what he needs now to pay the bills.

Carmichael made a first step towards that goal by signing up for the culinary arts program at Gateway Community College. He did so at a new ​“resource fair” on Thursday at the Dwight/West River police substation on Edgewood Avenue.

The event was the latest part of a city campaign to help integrate the 25 felons who return to New Haven from jail every week, in the hopes of stemming recidivism that’s at the heart of violent crime.

The event was one of four community-based gatherings designed to bring resources for recently released prisoners into the neighborhoods most affected by their release. Participants can avail themselves of health, supportive housing, and internship programs, as well as applications and advice on obtaining pardons.

Those and other services were on offer Thursday thanks to New Haven Reentry Coordinator Amy Meek and her colleague Tirzah Kemp, the initiative’s community organizer.

“Research has shown that if we can connect [just-released people] with resources within the first few weeks, recidivism is less,” said Meek (pictured here and above with Carmichael).

So the resources are traveling en masse, to the released prisoners and their neighborhoods in the form of resource fairs.

As a companion effort to localize services for re-entering prisoners, parole officers are being placed in the substations. That means parolees don’t have to travel across town to meet their officers at the main office on Fitch Street.

“Parole is moving to a more neighborhood model,” said Ed Kendall, a retired city police detective who now works for the state supervising parolees in the city. He hatched the new hyper-local approach with Meek.

Thursday’s resource fair was the second in a series. The first was held at the Fair Haven substation in November.

Parolees who live in Fair Haven report to the Blatchley Avenue substation, where parole officer Chris Watts has caseload of 40 people. ​“The neighborhood focus is going in the right direction,” he said.

Of Watts’ 40 parolees, 25 came to the Fair Haven resource fair. The fact that 25 people could come meant they had not yet secured work yet, Watts said. ​“The biggest need is employment.”

That’s true of 30-year-old Alfonso Hargrove (pictured speaking with Mayor John DeStefano), who attended Thursday’s fair. He’s employed, but not fully.

He was released from jail in early May, after serving six years for drug offenses and completing prison culinary training. By August he had knocked on the door of Mory’s, the storied Yale eatery, and been hired to a full time job in the kitchen. However, he recently saw his hours reduced to around 20 per week, he said.

Now he brings home $150 a week. That’s not enough to cover his rent and child support. The small room Hargrove secured to live in through a sponsor costs him $125 a week. He said he also wants to be able to contribute $50 from every check towards the support of his three young kids, living with their mothers.

His tiny room stifles him, he said. ​“It’s a challenge.”

Like Carmichael, Hargrove signed up with Gateway. He also spoke with Pam Allen of Evergreen Family Oriented Tree, a recently established supportive housing organization. Her program, which she described as faith-based, has three female and two male houses supporting 60 people, she said.

She said her next step will be to meet with Hargrove and his parole officer in the next few days to see how he’s doing and if he’s right for her program.

Meek said future resource fairs are upcoming in Dixwell and Newhalville. The entire program, said mayoral spokesperson Adam Joseph, is paid for with federal funds.

To learn with more specificity what re-entry services are needed, Kemp said her office is surveying anyone with an offense on his or her record, having been jailed or not. Her plan is to collect at least 600 completed survey forms. She can be reached at 203 946‑7665.