Growing up in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of southeast San Diego, Da’Fontá Belcher spent much of his time “hanging out with friends.” But Da’Fontá’s lifelong friends were also documented gang members. After numerous arrests for things like selling drugs and a DUI, Da’Fontá landed eight months in Donovan State Prison.
“You can’t tell someone to stop. They’ll stop when they’re ready, and I was ready,” recalled Da’Fontá. But turning his life around on his own wasn’t easy.
Not Just “Their” Problem
Helping former prisoners doesn’t typically top people’s lists of causes to support. Yet the fragmented resources available in California to help ex-offenders reintegrate into society perpetuates a recidivism rate estimated at more than 70 percent, creating a vicious cycle that has far reaching health, safety, economic, and social impacts in our communities.
San Diego Grantmakers (SDG) members The California Endowment, Alliance Healthcare Foundation and The Parker Foundation had an understanding of these impacts and a desire to help. In 2006, they invited other funders, including the San Diego County Bar Foundation, Price Charities and Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation, to form a learning group that spent more than a year working with law enforcement and corrections officials to research prisoner rehabilitation and reentry.
The Right Conditions
Several facts surfaced: San Diego County is one of three in the state that receive one-third of all California parolees; furthermore, San Diego's City Heights and Diamond communities together are home to the largest number of parolees in the county. Encouragingly, the County was already utilizing legislation that allows for better rehabilitation services during incarceration.
“We began to think that reentry reform was possible locally,” said Steve Eldred, program manager at The California Endowment. “The challenge was continuing services once individuals are released.”
The group decided to focus in City Heights and Diamond, and dubbed the effort “Coming Home to Stay.”
Unprecedented Public/Private Collaboration
The funders convened more than 70 formerly incarcerated individuals, their families and community members, as well as representatives from faith-based organizations, nonprofit health and human services agencies, parole and probation offices, and the Sheriff’s Department and District Attorney’s Office to determine what help ex-offenders need and how best to provide it.
Today, the Coming Home to Stay program matches clients according to their individual needs with health, housing, job training and placement, anger management, court advocacy, substance abuse, and family reunification services (among others) provided by a broad-based network of nonprofit organizations. Transition advocates check in weekly with clients, and trained peer mentors are available for 24/7 support. Finally, the nonprofits and criminal justice agencies cooperatively help manage ex-offenders’ reentry.
"I call it a caring community. It’s the most unique approach to prisoner rehabilitation that I've seen in my 28 years of related experience," said Jim Sanders, program manager of Coming Home to Stay.
Helping People Help Themselves
Coming Home to Stay helped Da’Fontá get his car out of impound and find work and housing. But just as importantly, it helped him secure a driver’s license and car insurance – things that may seem minor, but to Da’Fontá mean staying out of jail.
Da’Fontá is now gainfully employed in Diamond. His aspirations seem renewed as he considers whether to continue his education or pursue culinary school. “It means so much to have someone believe in you, when sometimes your own family doesn’t believe in you.”
What Does This Mean About Philanthropy?
The problems associated with cycles of incarceration impact everyone at some level. Organized philanthropy can conduct the research, collect the community feedback, and establish the collaborations necessary to develop effective solutions to such societal issues. The low recidivism among Coming Home to Stay’s clients demonstrates the program’s potential to pave the way for similar public/private partnerships that provide second chances to individuals, and long-term benefits to our communities.
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Coming Home to Stay Transition Advocate Melody Ibarra and client Da'Fontá Belcher.
