Hi everyone, this is Ana Yáñez-Correa at the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition (TCJC). It’s our first guest blog post!
I’m not sure how many Grits readers know about a project we began about a year ago to help those exiting prisons and jails learn about available resources they can tap into in the community.Though we’re not a service organization, we receive over a hundred letters from inmates every month, and we average 40 calls per week from a wide range of individuals seeking help. After so many calls asking for information about resources in the community – and after conducting so much research on providers and programs in various regions – we decided to create the state’s first comprehensive directory of resources for returning individuals.
It doesn't always take money to make a difference in a person’s life. Some people just need help finding information about housing, health services, employment, benefits and assistance, education, or community involvement. And so we provided that (full PDF version here) for them. Although compiling the guide took many months (and was outside our usual scope of research for juvenile and criminal justice policy recommendations), the effort was well worth it and the guide has been distributed far and wide via our website.
Since it’s quite a large document, we recently decided to break out the resources by region and offer individualized PDFs (below). These will help re-entry specialists – as well as community supervision officers, treatment providers, and other groups – provide tailored assistance to those in need:
- Austin and Central Texas
- Dallas and Surrounding Area
- Fort Worth and Surrounding Area
- High Plains
- Houston and Surrounding Area
- Northeast and East Texas
- San Antonio and Surrounding Area
- South Texas
- West Texas
These documents are also available on our website. We hope they can help Grits readers identify re-entry services in their community, or use them to refer people they know to organizations who can help.
If any of you know of any additional resources you think we should include, please let us know! We will try to update the resources every six months.
Thanks, until we post again…
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