Renewed grant helps ex-felons find work

Ex-felons in Cape Girardeau will continue to have at least one program designed to help them successfully reenter society.

This August, the Cape Girardeau Community Caring Council received federal grant funds for the second time to help ex-felons in the area find jobs and reenter society, said Cheri Heeren of the Pettis County Community Partnership, who applied for the one-year grant.

Heeren said the grant was renewed due to the support it provides ex-felons in helping them reenter society. She also said the grant was made without regard to statistics, because it's too soon to evaluate the grant's effectiveness.

"Our statistics will come down the road," Heeren said. "We are looking two years out, or three, to see if we've had a lasting impact. There's always a chance for an ex-felon to relapse."

Statistics from the caring council state that in 2003 one in three Missouri prison admissions was a returning parole violator.

In 2005, the Missouri Re-entry Program was established with the intent to organize state governmental bodies and help ex-felons re-enter society, but wasn't making much progress, said Kay Azuma, the community coordinator at the caring council.

In April 2006, the partnership in Pettis County received a three-year grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service and distributed the funds to the then 11 partnerships in Missouri. The caring council was one of the partnerships.

The Pettis County grant was used to hire each partnership an extra worker from AmeriCorps VISTA, a program under the Corporation for National and Community Service, who could help the reentry program coordinate local government and not-for-profit organizations to meet the mission of helping ex-felons reenter society, she said.

Meeting goals, accountability

Over the past three years, Azuma said, the caring council has put the most importance on the goal of helping ex-felons find employment. This was the biggest challenge ex-felons in Cape Girardeau faced, she said, and it will continue to be the focus for the next year. Each partnership decides which goals to achieve, Azuma said.

Randy Huffman, the current AmeriCorps VISTA representative with the caring council said he often loses contact with ex-felons after they leave the caring council's nine-week life skills focus group, making it difficult to track successful re-entry. The focus group covers reentry issues, such as employment skills, computer training, education preparation and transportation services.

Still, Huffman has compiled local employment statistics for 343 ex-felons who have contacted the caring council. The statistics, which document the period from August 2006 through June 2009, show 110 ex-felons, or 32 percent, found jobs. He said he doesn't know if these individuals are still holding jobs.

New expenditures

The current grant, set to expire in August, is different from the last three-year grant, Heeren said. The first grant allocated funds for a Missouri supervisor to help coordinate the mission of the state's local volunteers. Now, that position is being funded by the 21 Missouri partnerships, totaling around $12,000, Heeren said. The position works out of the Pettis County Partnership, she said.

Patricia Cox, who is an ex-felon, said she hopes participating with the caring council will improve her chances of finding a job.

"I hope they can help me become self-sufficient," Cox said, "not to do it for me, but to help me. It's crazy how I went from up here, to down here, so quick."

In April 2008, Cox received a felony conviction for theft, her third such offense, and spent almost four months in the Cape Girardeau County Jail. In March, she found her first job since her release but was laid off in June. Since then, she said she has applied at more than 40 businesses but is still unemployed.

"I would like to pay my bills," Cox said.

For more information, contact Randy Huffman at the Community Caring Council at651-3747, extension 117, or visit communitycaringcouncil.org.