The WorkSource Oregon Reentry program helps people incarcerated in the state work on resumes, map out career goals and even connect with future employers. The program is funded by a roughly $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor and from the state, but those funds are set to expire this year. A bill in the Oregon legislature earlier this year would have funded the program, but failed to become law.
Danielle Dawson is a collaborative investigative reporter for InvestigateWest and worked on this story with Wesley Vaughan for Bolts. Dawson joins us to share more on the impact this program has had and its future.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. It can be hard to find a job. It can be very hard to find a job after you’ve served time in prison. That’s what the WorkSource Oregon Reentry program has been intended to address. It helps incarcerated people work on resumes, map out career goals and even connect with future employers. But in a challenging budget year, lawmakers in the most recent session could not find the money to continue the program.
Danielle Dawson wrote about this recently for InvestigateWest. She’s a collaborative investigative reporter there. She partnered with Wesley Vaughan for Bolt’s Magazine on this story, and she joins us now. It’s great to have you back on the show.
Danielle Dawson: Thanks for having me, Dave.
Miller: Can you describe how this program works?
Dawson: Yeah, the WorkForce Oregon Reentry program is a novel workforce development program that’s specifically for Oregon’s incarcerated population, and there’s kind of two main components of the program. There’s programming available inside prison for inmates who are soon to be released and this is usually about six months before the end of their sentence. It helps them develop soft skills like interviewing, crafting a resume, mapping out career goals, how to find job listings and how to talk about a conviction with a potential employer. These are all things that are not often discussed in existing job training programs for correctional facilities, but it helps people reorient themselves to the labor market after years behind bars.
And then once outside of prison, program staff help actually facilitate the job placement. This includes helping them secure resources to secure and maintain employment, helping them pay for training, how to get gas to get to and from work, and then licensing fees.
Miller: What’s the problem that this is intended to solve? I mean, what are some of the specific challenges people who have left prison face when they look for employment?
Dawson: Formerly incarcerated populations nationwide have some of the highest rates of unemployment. One recent study estimated that the national unemployment rate for formerly incarcerated people is about 27%. That’s higher than the general unemployment rate at any point during the Great Depression. It’s even higher in those first two years after exiting prison. And there’s a couple of different factors contributing to this. One of those is just difficulty meeting basic needs after release, like maintaining stable housing or transportation. That makes it hard for you to find a job. You need an address to put on employment documentation and you need a way to get to work.
There are also often restrictions on where a person with a criminal conviction can work, and this limits the pool of available jobs. Chase Bissett, director of employment services for Central City Concern, a social services provider in Portland, described it best. He said it’s almost impossible to find a job when you’re unable to meet some of those needs or know what employers will accept the background that you have, and this is a gap that WorkSource strives to close.
Miller: What did you hear about the connection between employment or the lack of employment and recidivism?
Dawson: The general consensus of studies is that recidivism and poverty are inextricably linked. When someone is unable to meet their basic needs, that kind of pushes them back into a survival mode where they could end up recommitting a crime and then ending up back in prison. One study from Missouri found that formerly incarcerated people who were unemployed after leaving prison were twice as likely to return than those who were able to obtain full-time work.
Miller: The program in Oregon started sort of in a limited way in just two institutions: Deer Ridge and Warner Creek. But then it was expanded statewide. How are state officials able to do that?
Dawson: It started as a pilot in, as you mentioned, Deer Ridge and Warner Creek. And it was spearheaded by the local Labor Development board there, East Cascade Works, expanding statewide. East Cascade Works, through the Oregon Workforce Partnership – the coalition of Labor Development boards in the state – secured about $5 million in grant money. One grant was from the Department of Labor and the other one was from the state. And the money that they had secured went towards building out computer labs in all of the institutions that the Department of Corrections runs, and also expanding the staffing capacity to increase the number of people that they were able to see up to 900 annually.
Miller: I want to hear some specific stories of people who were formerly incarcerated, starting with Thomas Van Hoose. What does this program mean for him?
Dawson: Thomas had been to prison twice before. He connected with the program on his third stint. He told us that the difficulty affording basic things, like rent and food, on the minimum wage job that he had once he left prison the first two times, was something that had led him back to drugs. So WorkSource helped him realize that he could do it differently. Specifically for him, the opportunity to get a commercial driver’s license was something that was really impactful. Normally, this costs about $6,000 for training and licensing fees, and that can be really hard when you’re working a minimum wage job to cover all by yourself. So WorkSource covered that and now he’s working at a Redmond pipe supplier.
Miller: You talked to another former adult in custody, Shane Sherman. He was released from prison just about six months ago. What did he say he got from the program?
Dawson: Yeah, for him, he had known that he was going to be returning to work for his brother’s construction company. But what was critical for him was the work that WorkSource did to connect his brother with the different resources that are available for employers who have second-chance hiring offering. That’s another unique aspect of WorkSource. They work directly, one-on-one with people who are in prison as well as employers. They provide education on second-chance hiring, including informing them about things like tax incentives, in addition to hosting job fairs in prison to give employers an opportunity to connect with participants. So that was a big deal for him and his brother.
On top of that, they also gave him clothes –boots and other items that would help him when it becomes winter. Working in a construction site gets very cold and he said that without those items, he probably would be screwed.
Miller: So this is two individual stories. Is there data more broadly about how this program has worked in Oregon?
Dawson: Yeah, the data is pretty preliminary. The program has not been around for very long. As far as connection to employment, the most complete picture that WorksForce has is from those first two pilot years. About 277 people received help while they were in prison and then were released, 138 of whom continued to participate after their release. The majority of these active participants, about 71%, were able to find employment or were in training for skilled work. And there is a bit of a drop off in those numbers. East Cascades Works attributed this to the fact that many people who were being released were moving back to places like Portland, which is outside of their service area. Their service area is specifically Central Oregon, so they became disconnected from their staff. And that was one of the reasons why they were advocating for an expansion statewide.
Miller: What did happen when lawmakers considered a bill this past session that would have funded the program for another two years?
Dawson: The program was introduced with unanimous bipartisan support. It moved on to the Ways and Means Committee, but as you had mentioned earlier, it was a difficult time for budgeting and this was being introduced as a new funding measure. So the Ways and Means Committee, the state budget writers, were concerned about how federal funding changes would affect Oregon and its ability to pay for existing programs, and the trepidation led them to advance very few spending requests last year. One of the sponsors of the bill to fund the WorkForce program over the next two years, Representative David Gomberg, said that lawmakers made about $5 billion in asks last year. But the legislature only had about $500 million to dole out, and this program, despite its support, was one that did not make the final cut.
Miller: Does that mean that the whole program is ending?
Dawson: Not necessarily. The Department of Corrections is very adamant that they want to be able to continue this program in some way, shape or form. And East Cascades Works, the entity that helps spearhead that, is also very committed to maintaining the program in some capacity. What that looks like though, remains uncertain. One of the Department of Corrections spokespersons that we had spoken to said that it’ll kind of look like building the airplane as we’re going. They are most worried about their ability to continue the on-site services that WorkSource provides.
Miller: The pre-release?
Dawson: Yes, the pre-release. That is a very critical part of the coin, according to Heather Ficht, the executive director of East Cascades Works. What she describes that time as, is a “confidence builder.” It helps people realize that they have hope before they’re actually thrust back into the real world and have to navigate that transition. So they’re worried about that part specifically.
What a version of continuing that looks like, they’re still not entirely sure, but they are trying to find interim funding to hopefully maintain the current service levels, if not work out some other interim measure to at least maintain some of the training that they offer.
Miller: Did folks at the Department of Corrections say that they could do any in-prison work without dedicated funding? It seems like in some ways specialized help and sometimes in specialized places – with new computers, say – if we’re talking about coaching people in how to get jobs, write resumes or write cover letters, is that not something that existing DOC folks can do?
Dawson: Not necessarily. Yeah, that was something that the Department of Corrections was very clear that their current re-entry coordinators, other teams and other services don’t necessarily have the capacity to take on that very hands-on work that the WorkSource staff is able to achieve with these participants. They’re already overwhelmed and a lot of these Department of Correctional facilities don’t necessarily have the same resources, just because of supervision requirements or other things resource-wise. So yeah, they said that despite the best intentions that they might have in wanting to continue this, without the partnership that the WorkSource people provides, they don’t know if they’ll be able to continue it in the same way.
Miller: Danielle, thanks very much.
Dawson: Thank you so much.
Miller: Danielle Dawson is a collaborative investigative reporter for InvestigateWest. She collaborated on this story about the questionable future for the WorkSource Oregon Reentry program with reporter Wesley Vaughan for Bolts Magazine.
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