“Stay with Us – If You Spent More Than Ten Years in Prison”, Local Hosts Offer Ex-Prisoners

An initiative in the United States is matching prison inmates due for release with community hosts and mentors in Alameda County, California, to help them re-integrate to life in the outside world while providing them with a spare space for six months.

The Homecoming Project launched in August 2018, offering their services to prisoners who have been in jail for at least a decade and potentially without identity papers, according to Tera Lawyer, project coordinator at Impact Justice, a nonprofit that runs the initiative.

“I had my own room, for the first time in over 10 years,” says KC Matthews, among the first to benefit from the post-prison initiative. “It provided me a safe space, my own space, and provided me stability … to do the other things I needed to do.”