RestoreCorps
A proposed Virginia -based national service pilot program to address the inter-related needs of released prisoners and the blighted communities to which they return

Need for RestoreCorps.  The national challenges of rising prison populations and high recidivism rates have been well-documented.  According to Harvard sociology professor Bruce Western,
“The American penal system has grown continuously for the past thirty-five years.  Spending on corrections now totals $70 billion each year. . . After release, ex-prisoners experience reduced rates of employment, wages and wage growth. . . Two-thirds are rearrested within three years, and one-fourth return to prison during that time.”
“From Prison to Work,” December 2008,
The Hamilton Project, www.brookings.edu

The cost of recidivism to the community is approximately $30,000 per person per year – plus the loss of a productive citizen’s income.  Most ex-offenders face significant challenges to successful re-entry: unhealthy relationships, few marketable skills and felony convictions that make it difficult to secure employment and housing.  Many find the social barriers of life “on the outside” as confining as the iron bars of prison.  The difficulties of finding employment and housing as well as establishing positive relationships contribute significantly to the cycle of repeated incarceration.

The needs of released prisoners reflect – and in many cases stem from – the needs of the communities to which they return.  These communities are characterized by high levels of poverty, unemployment and crime, a fertile breeding ground for recidivism.  Sustainable change in the lives of ex-offenders is inextricably connected to the opportunities, safety and support of a healthy living and working environment.  The debilitating problems of ex-offenders and the economically depressed neighborhoods to which they return are interdependent and call for initiatives that foster the rehabilitation and revitalization of both.

Concept for RestoreCorps.  The vision is for a national service program focused on restoring the lives of formerly incarcerated people as they restore their own communities. Nationally there are numerous secular and faith-based prisoner reentry and job-training programs that have been proven to improve the lives and prospects of formerly incarcerated men and women.  These programs not only teach critical skills that lead to healthy and holistic transition back into communities across America, but also improve the public safety. Research has shown that recidivism is less among men and women who give back to society after incarceration. Who better can restore a community than individuals who are restoring their lives by “giving back.”?  RestoreCorps can provide a mechanism for this double restoration of both individuals and community.

Restore Corps would conform to the core values of AmeriCorps, but would be unusual in a number of ways.  Most AmeriCorps members are students or college graduates who gain valuable skills and experience as they serve in non-profit organizations.  Restore Corps participants would be exclusively formerly incarcerated men and women who would receive counseling and training in life/work skills for part of each day and devote the remainder of the day to service in not- for- profit social entrepreneurial business ventures and non profit organizations that bring greatly needed legal commercial activity to economically depressed communities around the nation. One might think of this as an “urban farming” activity necessary to stop erosive blight and torestore an economically blighted area into a thriving, productive, self-sustaining  community.

RestoreCorps would provide a supervised, real-life working experience in which members practice core standards of workplace behavior, responsibility and positive relationships with peers and authority figures.  It is precisely these competencies that formerly incarcerated men and women need to maintain employment, avoid re-incarceration and succeed in life outside prison walls.  In addition to providing “life labs” for participatns, the businesses in which they participants would further the economic progress of the surrounding neighborhood, contribute to the sustainability of the program, and connect economically depressed communities to the broader communities that surround them.

RestoreCorps will promote an emergent sense of restorative justice. The same individuals whose past behavior severely injured the community will now be helping to heal the wounds of the past and contribute to a healthy future.

This holistic approach to prisoner reentry meets the specialized needs of ex-offenders as they contribute to the revitalization of struggling communities and build relationships with neighborhood residents. Now more than ever, this nation is in need of unique and innovative   interpretations of the national service model that has inspired AmeriCorps. The widespread need for effective prisoner reentry programs calls for a distinctive national service program – RestoreCorps – designed to serve the overwhelming numbers of formerly incarcerated men and women who want to contribute in a meaningful way to their communities by contributing to the restoration and vitality of the communities which they previously violated.

We therefore propose that the Corporation for National Community Service establish RestoreCorps as a pilot national service program similar to AmeriCorps, designed for ex-offenders who are prepared and trained to serve the depressed communities to which they return as part of their own restoration and reentry.  

Benefits of RestoreCorps.  RestoreCorps would address in an innovative way several issues of national concern:
•    Prisoner re-entry and recidivism are addressed through job training and reintegration into the community.  The annual cost per person for RestoreCorps is approximately $15,000 (including stipend) – about half the cost of maintaining an individual in the penal system.  (Recidivism rate for Boaz & Ruth graduates in our self designated pilot reentry program to date is 12% - less than half the national average.)
•    Community revitalization will be addressed through social entrepreneurial ventures—a type of “urban farm” helping to reclaim devasitated landscape and economy(retail and service businesses, property acquisition and restoration, transitional housing, etc.).  These not for profit businesses provide on-the-job training for members, thriving commercial environment for residents, and income to sustain programs.  Restored properties provide transitional housing.
•    Cross-cultural connections will be addressed through community events and consumer-oriented businesses that draw people from throughout the wider community.  Partnerships with the business, education and non-profit sectors cultivate awareness, understanding and collaborative solutions.

Modifications for RestoreCorps.  Several specific changes in the AmeriCorps national service model policies would accommodate the unique nature of RestoreCorps and the challenges of its target members:
1.    Recognizing that work readiness is a key reentry learning objective, in the  pilot model “work” language would be allowed
2.    Recognizing that attendance and behavior are key factors in work readiness, measurement of hours to determine attendance success and administration of fines and bonuses  based on measured attendance  behavior and other workplace behaviors would be allowed
3.    Recognizing that longer hours fill ex-offenders’ lives with a positive chance for success, more hours or hours in same work outside of RestoreCorps funding would be allowed
4.    Recognizing that recreating commercial activity is a key service to a blighted urban community, service assignments that operate the core 501c3 not-for-profit training enterprises in blighted commercial areas would be allowed until a defined cost to income trigger is reached allowing the enterprise to become self sustainable without RestoreCorps members.
5.    Educational benefits may be transferred to children or grandchildren.

Piloted and submitted by Boaz and Ruth, Inc.
Richmond, Virginia

Our outcomes--less that 12% recidivism in our graduates and 37% reduction of crime in our neighborhood--call for this pilot to be continued, studied, and replicated. 

 MISSION: Rebuilding lives and communities through relationships, work readiness training and economic revitalization.

VISION: Communities of hope, transformation, restoration and connection
•    Fractured communities transformed into attractive, safe and thriving commercial areas
•    Disenfranchised people (suffering from generational poverty) empowered to become productive, contributing, self-sufficient, connected, citizens (employed, stable, emotionally competent)
•    All people growing into wholeness through unity across economic, geographical, educational, and cultural divides

STRATEGIES:
REBUILDING - We rebuild lives of formerly incarcerated men and women through a transitional work readiness/jobs and training program.
EMPOWERING - We empower the physically blighted commercial corridor of Highland Park by restoring buildings, incubating and operating businesses, and providing jobs.
CONNECTING - We connect Highland Park and our program participants to the wider Richmond community through activities that bridge racial, economic, and geographic barriers.

Pilot to RestoreCorps--Boaz & Ruth 2003-2008
Only as high as you reach can you grow. Only as far as you seek can you go.
Only as deep as you look can you see. Only as much as you dream can you be
   
HISTORY: Boaz and Ruth, Inc was founded on the vision that formerly incarcerated men and women, considered by some as “throw away” people, could become change agents for the blighted neighborhoods to which they return. Furthermore that by connecting the ex offenders and the neighborhoods to the wider community-at-large, a city can be changed.

Combining the  founder’s 30 years of retail experience with this vision resulted in the birth of a faith based social entrepreneurial nonprofit organization—Boaz & Ruth. It had been her long held vision that poverty and community blight could best be addressed by a nonprofit “service” of opening and operating seed businesses where no “for-profit” business would dare choose to locate. As the men and women needing a second chance develop and operate these social entrepreneurial enterprises, they are learning and practicing relational and emotional competencies as well work readiness skills.  As the seed businesses take root the goal is that they would form fertile ground for outside businesses to take hold. In the process, both individuals and communities are changed, and an organization develops sustainability. Our approach, which produces a quadruple-bottom-line--changed individuals, a changed community, a connected city, and a sustained organization--has been given the designation social entrepreneurism. J. Gregory Dees of Stanford (and currently Duke) University, in his 1998 article on the subject wrote,
The idea of 'social entrepreneurship' has struck a responsive chord. It is a phrase well suited to our times. It combines the passion of a social mission with an image of business-like discipline, innovation, and determination commonly associated with, for instance, the high-tech pioneers of Silicon Valley. The time is certainly ripe for entrepreneurial approaches to social problems. Many governmental and philanthropic efforts have fallen far short of our expectations. Major social sector institutions are often viewed as inefficient, ineffective, and unresponsive. Social entrepreneurs are needed to develop new models for a new century.


And Wikipedia clarifies what distinguishes a social entrepreneur,,
A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses traditional entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change….Whereas a business entrepreneur typically measures performance in profit and return, a social entrepreneur assesses success in terms of the impact he has on society. While social entrepreneurs often work through nonprofits and citizen groups, many work in the private and governmental sectors. The main aim of a social enterprise is to further its social and environmental goals.

In 2002 Boaz & Ruth began by opening a reentry-training program anchored by a thrift store on Meadowbridge Road in Highland Park (one of the highest crime districts in Richmond. Men and women in the training program attend ten hours of class and 30-40 hours of “practice” time in the lifelab store each week. Developing the emotional, relational, and work competencies needed to retain a job is the focus of both classes and life labs. The store was quickly filled by donations from Martha’s Mixture, a Carytown Antique store owned by the CEO, and Martha’s former customers. The training center/store provided an oasis of hope along a commercial corridor, which in 2002 had only two other legal retail businesses among the boarded-up buildings and corner drug dealers. During the first two years there were a total of six murders in the intersection directly in front of B&R. Neighbors were afraid to leave their homes. However, with the presence of the Boaz & Ruth program, slowly things began to change in the community and in the lives of program participants. (See outcomes in annual reports.)

BRACE is born: In spring of 2004 Boaz and Ruth was noticed by individuals in the Virginia Department of Social Service. They encouraged us to apply to become an AmeriCorps program because we appeared to be “a good fit.” Our first application was declined. On Thursday February 3rd, 2005 at 10 a.m. officers from the Virginia Office on Volunteerism and Community Service (OVCS) met with Boaz & Ruth staff to discuss how to improve our next application and still remain true to the B&R reentry job-training program. As a result, we were delighted to be accepted as an AmeriCorps program for the years 2005-2008. The technical support, encouragement and financial support helped the Boaz & Ruth AmeriCorps Endeavor  (BRACE) --working within the existing framework of the B&R reentry program-- to achieve many good outcomes in a depressed community, in the lives of ex offenders (members and non members) needing a second chance,  and in the strengthening of Boaz & Ruth as an organization. We appreciate the vision and support of OVCS in this partnership.

Our innovative approach to a pressing social need and to a depressed community has achieved local and national attention.  We were winners of the first Purpose Prize founded by Mark Freedman of Civic Ventures. Harris Woffard past CNCS president presented the award and was on the selection committee. Numerous community awards followed.  Most importantly our BRACE members were learning to change their behavior so that they could not only stay out of jail and prison (MEMBER DEVELOPMENT) but that they could and also did give back to society through COMMUNITY SERVICE. The Highland Park neighborhood was being changed. A 2009 Richmond Police Department Report indicated that crime had declined 37% in Highland Park as compared to 17% for a nearby area with similar challenges. The primary difference was the community restoration of the commercial corridor as BRACE members filed up the empty buildings with fledgling retail endeavors. The recidivism rate of our graduates is less than 12% compared to the national average of over 50%.  Our number of members were increased by OVCS (without our asking) from nine in our spring 2006 notification to 26 by that fall. We stepped into the increase with all of our energy believing that together we--CNCS, OVCS and B&R-- are making a difference.

In December 2006 we were pleased to be the site chosen for CNCS to visit as they monitored an OVCS monitoring visit of us. Afterwards we received an email indicating how pleased CNCS was with our program.  December 19, 2006 we were invited to submit an application to become a Competitive AmeriCorps Program “based on unique program design, excellent performance, high member recruitment and retention...since we had demonstrated excellence....”  In spring of 2007 we received notification of our acceptance by CNCS as a state competitive sub grantee for the period 2007-2010. We also received the Governor’s Award for our AmeriCorps program and one of our volunteers received the President’s award for volunteerism.   We have made significant impact on unmet national need of restoring lives of ex-offenders and the communities to which they return.
The AmeriCorps CFR states, “The principal purpose of AmeriCorps is still direct service and ‘getting things done’ in our communities and our country.”   We submit that Boaz & Ruth through the assistance of BRACE members is doing a good job “getting things done.” And we are doing the very things that CNCS values -- meeting society’s unmet needs, serving the community, member development and connecting disparate communities, and doing so via methods CNCS also values—using innovative and sustainable service learning activities. (For outcomes see our annual reports and Building a Healthy Village publication.)

 B&R is award winning because of our innovative approach to achieving service outcomes in different ways--ways, which are recognized as innovative, successful, and sustainable.   CNCS affirms the spirit of innovation and indicates that it seeks programs with unique approaches. For those with a long history of traditional AmeriCorps service sites and little exposure to the concept of social entrepreneurism, the operation of B&R business ventures as AmeriCorps service may seem a reach. We maintain the reach is well worth taking—that the Boaz & Ruth AmeriCorps Endeavor (BRACE) supports the very essence of AmeriCorps and the vision of its founders.
For   
Only as high as we reach can we grow. Only as far as we seek can we go.
Only as deep as we look can we see. Only as much as we dream can we be.