Formerly incarcerated people returning to one Boston neighborhood may now find the path back home a little smoother.
On Friday, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, joined by cabinet officials and community advocates, celebrated the opening of a new outpost of the city’s Office of Returning Citizens and PowerCorps, a green jobs program, at 30 Dimock Street in Roxbury.
The new office will support “better connections” to health care, mental health, and substance use disorder services, as well as a food pantry, Wu’s office said in a statement. Both are “invaluable departments that provide opportunity for residents,” Wu said.
“Establishing welcoming, public facing resources in community is so important to making critical constituent services more accessible to our residents,” Wu continued.
The city’s Office of Returning Citizens provides services to the more than 3,000 people who return to the city after serving sentences in county, state, and federal custody, according to its website. PowerCorps is a workforce development program that prepares people aged for green jobs.
Both agencies prioritize people who have been “disproportionately impacted by the criminal legal system,” Wu’s office said.
On Friday, Wu’s office also announced that it had opened applications for the city’s Health and Wellness Services for Returning Citizens (HW-RC) grant program, making a total of $200,000 available to fund such programming as peer support, restorative justice efforts, as well as yoga and mindfulness services.
“This grant opportunity will enable the city to partner with organizations that provide tailored support to returning citizens as they come back to our community,” city Human Services Chief José F. Massó said “This grant is indicative of the [offices holistic approach to the needs of returning citizens.”
Wu’s office pointed to research showing that more than half of returning citizens contend with some kind of mental health or substance use disorder issue, which underlines the need for such services.
Opening the new office in Roxbury “tells people that we care about all aspects of their health and wellbeing, and I’m proud that we’re collectively sending that message as a city,” City Councilmember Ruthzee Louijeune said.
Applications for the Health and Wellness Services for Returning Citizens Grant program opened on Oct. 6. They close on Nov. 6, Wu’s office said. You can apply here.
