Returning home can be a bumpy process for many returning citizens. Too often times they come home to homelessness and face elevated employment, health and mental health challenges, according to M.A.D.E. Institute’s Executive Director Leon El-Alamin. Homes mean hope for many formerly incarcerated men and women “When basic needs like housing aren’t met, individuals are […]
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan lauded 41-year-old Brian Jones’ extraordinary record at the ribbon cutting of his east side 102030 clothing store last month. Jones, a paralegal who graduated summa cum laude from Oakland Community College, is well on his way toward achieving a bachelor’s degree at Eastern Michigan University. The typically reserved business owner fought […]
As a healthcare leader and employer of more than 33,000 employees, many would assume that Henry Ford Health System (HFHS) must actively minimize, if not eliminate, risks whenever possible. Nevertheless, Robert G. Riney, president of healthcare operations and chief operating officer at HFHS, says eliminating the requirement that job applicants state whether they’ve been convicted […]
Leon El-Alamin was tempted to give up his new way of life. Back home from prison, the north side Flint native struggled to support himself. Finding no success through programs that were designed help him get employed, he slept on his mother’s sofa. “I couldn’t even buy a pair of underwear,” El-Alamin recalls. While serving […]
By age 11 Craig Samuels felt doomed to a life of failure. Having been physically and verbally abused, he began accepting hurtful condemnations as his truth and his future. In some ways his mother’s emotional attacks were even harder for Samuels to endure than his father’s heavy hands. “At the time, I couldn’t understand, ‘What […]
Al Novak has been the lead chaplain in Genesee County for more than 32 years. He is a former officer who served on the metro Detroit police force for 17 years. Along with 27 active associate chaplains and more than 200 volunteers, he conducts a wide range of jail ministry programs at the Genesee County […]
Shayne Hodges first landed work at a pizzeria when he left prison in 2007. Owned by a friend, the shop gave Hodges a meager, but steady, income as a delivery driver, until it closed a year or so later. Convicted at 21, he found himself “bouncing around” retail jobs, always grateful to find employment […]
Drugs, abuse and neglect were part of a little girl’s introduction to the world. Her father was incarcerated and both her parents’ rights concerning her were eventually terminated. Now 9 years old, she went into foster care at age 2 and, by age 6, she had already been shuttled between a half-dozen different homes. “She […]
He went down in a hail of gunfire. At 21, Leon Wilson’s life as a flashy drug dealer and partier, who’d just bought champagne from a Saginaw Street market, appeared near its end. He bled from his head and back, wounded by masked men in a drive-by. Two weeks later Wilson woke from a coma […]