Andre Ward Testimony for Executive Budget Hearing

Thank you Chair Brannan and members of the Committee on Finance for the opportunity to provide testimony today. My name is Andre Ward and I am the Associate Vice President of the David Rothenberg Center for Public Policy at the Fortune Society.

The Fortune Society is a 55-year-old organization that supports successful reentry from incarceration and promotes alternatives to incarceration, thus strengthening the fabric of our communities. We do this by believing in the power of people to change; building lives through service programs shaped by the experiences of our participants; and changing minds through education and advocacy to promote the creation of a fair, humane, and truly rehabilitative justice system. In FY 2022, we served over 10,000 people across our programs and in our continuum of housing models, including over 2700 people held in our city jails.

Every day, nearly 1700 people across 200 housing units in seven jail facilities engage in group sessions, hard skill training, and other supports and activities offered by five long-time service providers, including Fortune. Culturally-competent, trained staff – numbering almost 120 across this group of providers – offer group sessions focused on cognitive behavioral interventions through evidence-based curricula, such as Thinking for a Change and Ready, Set, Work. We also offer a range of hard skills training and certification such as OSHA 30, electric, plumbing, barista, carpentry, welding, and cosmetology. Our staff are uniquely qualified to build trusting, transformative relationships based not only on their individual lived experience and training, but also because they are employed by mission-driven, community-based organizations built on an ethos of compassion and care.

In addition to providing hope, reducing idle time, offering therapeutic interventions and workforce training, these programs are one step along a continuum of care that extends into and helps stabilize our communities. Fortune analyzed all individuals discharged from our city jails in 2022 and eligible for transitional services and discovered that those people we worked with in the jails were five times more likely to enroll in our services after being released than those people who did not work with Fortune while in jail. By enhancing the likelihood that people will continue to participate in a range of services upon release, these jail-based programs also enhance community safety and well-being.

During a well-documented, continuing humanitarian crisis in our city jails, eliminating services and support offered by trusted community-based providers would seem to be illogical. The Department of Correction (DOC) cannot replicate these programs with in-house resources, and yet just last week that is precisely what DOC abruptly announced it will do, starting on July 1. However, in the DOC Executive Budget Hearing on May 19, it became clear that DOC has no plan in place to guarantee uninterrupted programming starting on July 1, in part because DOC has not yet resolved staffing issues including the necessary labor relations process.

A 52-year-old man named Mr. M started participating in group sessions run by Fortune while detained on Rikers Island. After being released, he immediately enrolled in our community-based services. We assisted him in obtaining identification, insurance, and connected him to

primary care. After participating in multiple programs, he now has a full-time job with the Port Authority and his own two-bedroom apartment. “Without the support and counseling by Fortune,” he said, “I wouldn’t have made it through.”

Mr. G, who also participated in Fortune’s groups, came to our Long Island City service center the day after he was released from AMKC, seeking assistance maintaining sobriety, finding housing, and employment. He graduated from our job readiness workshop and found himself a full-time job in a specialty grocery store. He also moved into our transitional housing. In addition, he accepted a paid internship with Fortune, running peer recovery support groups, because his true passion is helping others. He wants to give back because of what was given to him.

These examples represent only two of the thousands of people who have benefited from Fortune’s jail-based programs over many years. Some have even been hired as full-time employees at Fortune. One of my colleagues went from attending group sessions in jail to graduating from one of our city’s flagship schools, New York University, just last week. And yet, in the name of saving 1% of the DOC budget, which could be accounted for by eliminating vacant positions, the Administration seeks to close off pathways to success for countless others who could follow in his footsteps.

I urge the Council to support Fortune’s total workforce, in addition to the 24 staff members whose lines are jeopardized by the DOC contract termination. The Fortune Society stands proudly with the #JustPay Campaign organized by the Human Services Council in calling for an increased COLA of at least 6.5% for human services workers. Like workers at other human services agencies,1 the majority of our staff are people of color. Many come from the same communities as the people we serve. Approximately half of them have been directly impacted by the criminal justice system. As we move towards the mandated closure of Rikers Island in 2027, we must invest in the kinds of programs and services that would safely reduce our city jail populations – and that includes investing in the workforce that performs these vital functions while they do their best to support themselves and their families.

The City must also invest in the community-based programs that help break cycles of reincarceration, particularly for the most vulnerable people impacted by the criminal justice system: people with serious mental health diagnoses and those who are homeless. In addition to more units under the Justice Involved Supportive Housing (JISH) program, more funding is necessary to cover rising market rents and simultaneously provide robust supportive services. Similarly, increased funds for the Supervised Release program would enable us to provide enhanced services to those with greater needs. This could have a true impact on our jail population, given that half of the population has a mental health diagnosis, and 20% have been

diagnosed with a serious mental illness; notably, during March of this year alone on Rikers Island, there were over 10,000 missed medical appointments.2

It is important to note that DOC continues to be the subject of a federal court monitor in the Nunez matter. In an April 3, 2023 court filing, the Nunez monitor reported that “the jails continue to be plagued by an extremely high level of violence and disorder”3 and there exists a “failure to provide people in custody with the most basic services.”4 It defies logic to think that in this context, DOC will be able to seamlessly offer the range of programs and supports that Fortune and our sister agencies have provided inside our city jails, under challenging conditions, for years. As a Fortune participant said, “I wouldn’t have made it through” without our support. I am sure the same could be said by thousands of people served by our fellow providers. DOC simply does not have the right staff and training, or the competence, or the post-release continuum of care, to provide the same services and have the same stabilizing impact on individuals, families, and communities, who are predominantly Black and brown. In the name of public safety and well-being, equity, and racial justice, we urge the City Council to ensure the City invests in the programs and services along the entire continuum of care – inside the jails and out in our communities – that truly promote safety and well-being, for all of us.