Plan to find ex-offenders jobs is tripping on hurdles When he was campaigning for office, Mayor Nutter spoke with passion about the importance of giving a second chance to inmates who want to find a place in society again. He pledged to create opportunities for ex-offenders.
"If we want to drive the crime rate down in this city, we have to put these people back to work," he said at a September 2007 forum.
John Phillips, a former Graterford inmate who has turned his life around, liked what he heard. He's less happy now.
As of Dec. 31, Phillips will be out of a job, thanks to budget cuts Nutter announced last month. The program that Phillips works on, the Adolescent Violence Reduction Partnership, is being shut down after officials concluded that it was not as effective as they'd hoped.
"I felt I was making a difference," said Phillips, who was freed in February 2007, after serving time for aggravated assault. "This will make my life a lot worse. I'm on parole until 2019. I'm a father of four."
Phillips' plight is primarily the result of the economic crisis that has badly damaged the city's finances.
But nearly a year into Nutter's first term, the city's efforts to help former inmates have sputtered, and not all the problems can be blamed on budget pressures.
The city failed to take basic steps to implement a law encouraging the employment of ex-offenders. And the man hired to run the city agency helping former inmates was demoted after overspending his budget and canceling a contract with a nonprofit agency helping ex-cons find jobs.
Ray Jones, director of Impact Services Corp., said that his agency still doesn't know if its city contract will be renewed, and he wonders what's going on in the Mayor's Office for the Reentry of Ex-Offenders, or MORE.
"To date, there's been nothing but lip service in providing services for re-entry," Jones said.
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