News

[Source: “Planting Seeds of Change: Gardening with Prisoners,” Iowa Public Radio, 9 February 2017, by Lindsey Moon & Charity Nebbe]

After serving time in the corrections system, finding a job isn’t the easiest task. A new program in Johnson County is hoping more Iowans will return to the work force with the know-how to take on jobs in agriculture. Scott Koepke is education director for Grow Johnson County.

“I just started listening to people’s stories, from juvenile detention to Oakdale, and food insecurity was a part of all of them,” says Koepke. He’s been working with inmates at the Oakdale correctional facility on their five acre garden, which was producing a good yield of vegetables before Koepke started working with them. (more…)

[Source: “Inside Out offers new start, second chance,” Iowa City Press-Citizen, 17 January 2017, by Andy Douglas]

In a cozy garret above a downtown Iowa City church, a group of people gathered to talk about the work they’re doing. Or would like to do.

People returning to society after being released from prison attend skills-building workshops here or confer with mentors, or can attend a spiritual seekers group, as part of the Inside Out Reentry Community. (more…)

[Source: “What it’s like to get out of prison and have no home,” Iowa City Press-Citizen, 22 September 2016, by Stephen Gruber-Miller]

When Letisha Molina went looking for a new apartment, she was rejected 12 times.

She had bad credit, she says, but there was another issue tripping up potential landlords: her criminal past.

Molina has been to prison twice for using and selling drugs in Arizona. She used to use crack cocaine, but Oct. 11 will mark five years of sobriety. Two years ago, she moved to Iowa City looking for a fresh start. (more…)

[Source: “Catholic Worker house aims to help those in need,” Iowa City Press-Citizen, 15 August 2016, by Andy Davis]

One month after opening Iowa City’s first Catholic Worker House, a three-bedroom house on Sycamore Street that will provide up to 30 days of shelter for those in need, David Goodner said the house already is full.

Goodner, a live-in volunteer at the 1414 Sycamore Street house, at the beginning of the month officially opened the house with the help of fellow volunteer Emily Sinnwell. The two already are providing shelter to two recently-released prisoners and a single mother with two teenage sons. (more…)

[Source: “A second look for an untapped Eastern Iowa workforce,” The Gazette, 14 August 2016, by Trish Mehaffey]

Rob Crader says growing up in violent Chicago neighborhood and being around “gang-banging and hustling” led to a career of drug abuse, and then selling drugs and committing robberies and thefts to support that addiction.

Crader, now 42, of Coralville, who had been in and out of Illinois prisons for the last 10 years, now is on a new career and life path after his last crime — burglary — garnered him a 12-year prison sentence. (more…)

One year after opening its resource center at First Baptist Church in Iowa City, the Inside Out Reentry Community serving formerly incarcerated people living in Johnson County is gaining ground.