Returning Home: Funders Match a State's Commitment to Prisoner Reentry

When the COVID-19 epidemic first hit jails and prisons this spring, advocates rightly predicted disaster. At the urging of many, including prominent voices in philanthropy, state and local officials took steps to release elderly inmates and others at greater risk. Some of those measures seemed promising, at least at first, and in May, the Prison Policy Initiative reported “drastic cuts” in jail populations.

Since then, however, population reductions have leveled off or even reversed in many jurisdictions. But even with the prospects for lasting reform unclear, more people are leaving jails and prisons than would have done so in a normal year. That presents an opportunity for philanthropy to provide greater support to returning citizens as they reenter society.

That’s the exact goal of Returning Home Well, a $30 million public-private partnership in California that draws on philanthropic backing to support residents freed from prison. Returning Home Well is equally funded by the state, which is committing $15 million, and by a respectable list of funders that includes both regional and national heavyweights. A few of the larger names include the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the California Endowment, the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Foundations.

The effort is not the first public-philanthropic initiative coming out of the Golden State during the pandemic, nor is it the first foray into criminal justice funding for most of the backers. But it is an interesting example of one way philanthropy is directly supplementing public resources at a time of major belt tightening for state and local governments.

“Real, Meaningful Support”

Early on, California took some fairly proactive steps to reduce the number of people vulnerable to COVID-19 in its prisons and jails. It put a hold on intakes to its state-level correctional facilities and reduced bail to zero for most low-level offenses by early April. On June 16, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) announced that beginning on July 1, the state would expedite the release of thousands of medically vulnerable inmates from its prisons, as well as non-violent offenders with less than a year to serve.

Those efforts have resulted in over 5,000 early releases. That’s a small but significant portion of California’s overall prison population, which tops 100,000. Those 5,000 released, however, are at far higher risk of homelessness, addiction and chronic unemployment. That’s where efforts like Returning Home Well come in, paying for direct services like quarantine housing, transportation, medical treatment, employment services and direct cash assistance.

Returning Home Well is responsive to COVID-19 and the expedited releases, but it doesn’t limit its services to those individuals. In fact, it backs an extensive—though underfunded—system of reentry service providers already operating in California. Leading the initiative’s practical implementation is the Amity Foundation, a nonprofit that operates a network of reentry and rehabilitation centers in California and Arizona. According to information on Amity’s website, the organization is helping to coordinate the efforts of hundreds of service providers active in California, including A New Way of Life, the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, the Center for Employment Opportunities, Homeboy Industries, HealthRIGHT 360 and WestCare California.

A number of state departments are also partnering on the initiative, including CDCR, as well as California’s Department of Social Services and Department of Healthcare Services. As of August 27, Returning Home Well has raised $26 million of its $30 million goal, and returning citizens are already receiving services. “Over the last four months, we have seen the impact that safe housing, job training, and other reentry services can have for returning citizens,” said Sam Schaeffer, chief executive officer of the Center for Employment Opportunities, in a press release. “Despite the retracting economy, we’ve seen people thrive when given real, meaningful support.”

Frequent Collaborators

At first glance, the private funders backing Returning Home Well might seem a disparate bunch, but they’re actually quite close-knit. A good number of them are involved in Californians for Safety and Justice, an advocacy group based out of the Tides Center. Californians for Safety and Justice pushes for criminal justice policy reforms in the Golden State, drawing on funding from Returning Home Well supporters like Ford, OSF, the Rosenberg Foundation, the California Endowment and the California Wellness Foundation. CZI, the Heising-Simons Foundation, and Agnes Gund’s Art for Justice Fund are also involved, as well as Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger and his wife Kaitlyn—all of whom are supporting the reentry partnership.

Then there’s the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, which is also partnering with Ford to support the Justice and Mobility Fund at Blue Meridian Partners. Since the COVID crisis began, the Justice and Mobility Fund has become a significant source of direct financial assistance to the formerly incarcerated. It has contributed over $23 million to the Center for Employment Opportunities’ Returning Citizens Stimulus program, which gives returning citizens direct payments of up to $2,750 to help them ease back into life on the outside.

According to the Center for Employment Opportunities, Returning Citizens Stimulus has distributed $14.8 million so far, benefiting 7,820 people across 28 cities. In addition to Schusterman, Ford and Blue Meridian, its other funders include Agnes Gund and the Art for Justice Fund, along with the George Kaiser Family Foundation and the Robin Hood Foundation.

Only a Start

In a press release announcing Returning Home Well, Priscilla Chan said, “We not only need to reduce our prison population, we also need to provide significant and ongoing support to returning citizens so they, their families and communities can stay safe and thrive over the long term.”

Though CZI’s inevitable association with Facebook makes life difficult, it positions itself as a movement and advocacy funder fighting for systemic change. It’s also a California funder, leading the charge on Bay Area housing advocacy and other philanthropic work in the region. In the months and years ahead, CZI and the other funders behind Returning Home Well will need to figure out how they plan to supplement state budgets decimated by the pandemic. Will they prioritize direct services, as is the case here? Or will they give more weight to advocacy to better allocate the resources states and cities do have available?

For direct service funders, the good news is that focusing on the most vulnerable people—like returning citizens—can save public money in the long run. Someone who has successfully reentered society won’t be costing the state nearly as much to incarcerate, police and treat, after all. The same goes for supportive services to people struggling with addiction, the homeless and the mentally ill. Of course, as Chan implied, advocacy must also continue. These grantmakers appear to hope that their service and advocacy funding work in tandem, in this case, lowering the barriers to reform by proving that returning citizens aren’t doomed to recidivism.

If policy reform is the goal, these liberal funders are fortunate they have a receptive administration in Sacramento. Nevertheless, it’s easy to overlook the enormity of California’s incarceration problem. Even counting those 5,000-plus people released, the state’s prison population has fallen only about 11% since January. That’s comparable to reduction rates in places like Mississippi, South Carolina and Oklahoma. And that doesn’t account for the number of people held in local jails, a statistic that’s creeping back up nationwide. In short, there is still a long path to travel here.

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