Coming Home to Stay

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Background

San Diego County is one of three counties in the state that receive one-third of all California parolees. Furthermore, San Diego's City Heights and Diamond communities together are home to the largest number of parolees in the county. The fragmented resources available in California to help these ex-offenders reintegrate into society perpetuates a recidivism rate estimated at more than 70 percent, creating a vicious cycle that has far reaching health, safety, economic, and social impacts in our communities.

In 2006, several San Diego Grantmakers members were interested in addressing these issues, and formed a learning group that spent more than a year working with law enforcement and corrections officials to research prisoner rehabilitation and reentry. The group decided to focus their efforts in City Heights and the Diamond, and dubbed the effort “Coming Home to Stay” (CHTS).

The funders convened more than 70 formerly incarcerated individuals, their families and community members, as well as representatives from faith-based organizations, nonprofit health and human services agencies, parole and probation offices, and the Sheriff’s Department and District Attorney’s Office to determine what help ex-offenders need and how best to provide it.

Today, the Coming Home to Stay program matches clients according to their individual needs with health, housing, job training and placement, anger management, court advocacy, substance abuse, and family reunification services (among others) provided by a broad-based network of nonprofit organizations.

Transition advocates check in weekly with clients, and trained peer mentors are available for 24/7 support. Finally, the nonprofits and criminal justice agencies cooperatively help manage ex-offenders’ reentry.

To learn more about the Coming Home to Stay program, please visit its website, download the brochure or read the San Diego Giving Story profile.

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Recent CHTS News

In October 2010, the Coming Home to Stay program benefitted from a half million dollar matching grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). CHTS was one of only 10 projects chosen from among 181 applicants that year for the RWJF Local Funding Partnerships national grantmaking program. Combined with grants from the local funding partners, this money expands CHTS's operations beyond the initial pilot period to a three-year timeframe, allowing more ex-offenders to receive the assistance they need to reduce their chances of returning to prison, regain a sense of self-worth, and, often for the first time, realize their potential for legitimate success.