Milwaukee, USA - The U.S. Department of Labor is granting another $660,000 to a Milwaukee church's efforts to help ex-prisoners get jobs and resettle in the community.
Word of Hope Ministries Inc., 2677 N. 40th St., is one of 30 faith-based organizations nationwide to share in almost $20 million from the U.S. Department of Labor to help non-violent criminals released from prison.
"This population is not going away," the Rev. C.H. McClelland, pastor of Holy Cathedral Church of God in Christ, which houses Word of Hope, said Wednesday. "They're coming back to our community whether we have services to offer them or not."
Helping ex-prisoners make a transition to successful employment is of particular concern in Milwaukee's African-American community, McClelland said. Federal data in recent years have shown Wisconsin leading the nation in incarceration rates for African-Americans as well as in the divergence of the African-American and white unemployment rates.
McClelland - who was in Memphis, Tenn., on Wednesday for an annual conference of the Church of God in Christ Inc. - said he learned of the grant by phone Tuesday and he would know more details later.
The one-year $660,000 grant will extend to about 200 ex-inmates. The Word of Hope program is in the third year of a three-year $875,000 award from the Labor Department. The program offers job training, mentoring, case management, social services, health care, computer literacy and drug counseling to ex-prisoners returning to Milwaukee.
The federal agency said in news releases that the latest grant is part of a four-year $300 million collaborative - through the departments of Labor, Justice, Housing and Urban Development, and Health and Human Services - aimed at reducing recidivism among the 600,000 adult inmates released each year across the country. The Labor Department estimated that two-thirds of ex-prisoners get arrested again within three years of their release. McClellan said the recidivism rate among Word of Hope's clients so far is about 5%.
According to the Labor Department, Word of Hope competed with 548 other applicants for the grant money. Partners in the program include the Wisconsin Department of Corrections and the Private Industry Council of Milwaukee County.
"This was a very competitive, very selective process," said state Corrections Secretary Matthew Frank. He said his agency has put a higher priority on the successful return to the community of inmates who have served their sentences. Last year, the state released 8,600 prisoners, Frank said, and he added that it helps to have connections to community-based programs such as Word of Hope.
In its program year ending Aug. 31, Word of Hope placed 102 released prisoners in jobs paying between $6 and $15.50 an hour, said Dimitri Mills, corporate employment manager for the program.
"My job is knocking down a two-word barrier," Mills said: "felon and felony."
Mills said he works to quell employer apprehensions about hiring applicants with criminal records by explaining that Word of Hope works with men and women who were not imprisoned for violent or sexual offenses.