The Fortune Society’s New CEO Advocates for Enhanced Support Systems in Response to Governor’s State of the State Address

(January 9, 2024 – New York, NY) – The Fortune Society, and its newly appointed leader, Stanley Richards, applauds Governor Hochul for continuing to recognize the importance of reducing barriers to successful reentry by expanding access to higher education across all prisons in New York State and building out the Edgecombe Residential Treatment Facility transitional housing program, including offering it to women.

2023 was a year marked by a tremendous legislative victory, the passage and signing of the Clean Slate Act. “The Clean Slate Act will change the lives of millions of New Yorkers by relieving them of the lifetime stigma of a conviction history,” said Stanley Richards, President and CEO of The Fortune Society. “Fortune has been proud to partner with the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in offering services and support to people living in Edgecombe who are engaging in a wide range of programs, seeking employment, and reconnecting with family.”

More is needed, however, to ensure that people leaving prison can access safe and stable housing instead of being funneled into an overburdened shelter system. People need rental subsidies. The Housing Access Voucher Program (HAVP) bill (S568B/A1432A) provides a smart solution by explicitly including people being released from, or scheduled to be released from, incarceration as eligible to receive the voucher. The Fortune Society is hoping that the legislature and Governor will support this critical bill.

Many people leaving prison need housing with wraparound supports. The Fortune Society is calling for an increase in funding for the New York State Supportive Housing Program, which falls far short of other state and local funding streams, leaving many providers with untenable caseloads and struggling to provide robust services.

New York jails and prisons are no place for people with mental illness, and far too many people are caught in a cycle of rearrest and reincarceration because they cannot access the right kind of treatment and support, including peer supports. In fact, nearly half of the people on Rikers Island have a mental health diagnosis, with 20% being diagnosed with a serious mental illness. The Governor’s proposed funding for Intensive Forensic Assertive Community Treatment teams would ensure that more people with serious mental health diagnoses have consistent support in building stable lives.

Regarding the Governor’s focus on retail theft, as demonstrated by the War on Drugs and the Rockefeller Drug Laws, “Efforts allegedly aimed at stopping organized crime often fall hardest not on the purported masterminds, but on the people on the ground making poor choices out of addiction- and poverty-fueled desperation,” said Richards. “Investing in other means of addressing the socioeconomic drivers of retail theft would be more productive, and more equitable, than further criminalizing and demonizing some of the most vulnerable New Yorkers.”

This coming year. The Fortune Society will continue to advocate for the Governor and the legislature to invest in the programs and initiatives that enhance collective public safety, such as accessible, affordable housing; to focus on facts, instead of fear; and to find more ways to undo the intergenerational harms and racial injustice caused by decades of mass incarceration.

ABOUT THE FORTUNE SOCIETY: Founded in 1967, The Fortune Society has advocated on criminal justice issues for over five decades and is nationally recognized for developing model programs that help people with criminal justice histories to be assets to their communities. Fortune offers a holistic and integrated “one-stop-shopping” model of service provision. Among the services offered are discharge planning, licensed outpatient substance abuse and mental health treatment, alternatives to incarceration, HIV/AIDS services, career development and job retention, education, family services, drop-in services and supportive housing as well as lifetime access to aftercare. For more information, visit www.fortunesociety.org.