Fulton Community Reentry Center

The Osborne Association proposes to implement the Fulton Transition Team (FTT), a Community-Based Reentry Program of pre-release assessment and discharge planning, point-of-release transitional support, and post-release services for men who are moving from incarceration to transitional housing at the Fulton Community Reentry Center (“Fulton”), a 135-bed residence that Osborne will open in June 2022. Eligible participants will be incarcerated men aged 18+ who have been shown through an assessment process: (1) to have so few resources that they would otherwise enter a New York City shelter upon their release; and (2) to have, nevertheless, the capacity to succeed in permanent housing, given appropriate supportive services. Residents will be expected to move on to permanent housing within 12 months. In selecting residents, Osborne will prioritize men aged 50 and older, as well as those who have served prison terms of 7 years or more. Osborne has negotiated an agreement with the NYC Department of Homeless Services and New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to ensure that residents will transition seamlessly from prison to Fulton, within spending a single night in a shelter. Osborne has secured separate financing of Fulton’s operating costs, its clinical and facility staff, and its services, from three meals a day to case management and housing placement. FTT, consisting of a full-time Program Coordinator and 1.5 FTE Peer Mentors, will provide the missing piece to this suite of in-kind resources. Pre-release services will include virtual or in-person meetings for screening, intake, mentoring, and substance use and harm reduction education. Whenever possible, FTT staff will provide release-day escorts to Fulton. Post-release, FTT staff will offer peer mentoring, escorts to appointments, orientation to new technologies and public transit systems, facilitated groups to combat isolation, and escorted visits in search of permanent housing. The program will be sited in the South Bronx, within the 15th US Congressional District, the poorest House district in the nation. It will benefit at least 450 formerly incarcerated men over the life of the grant, as well as their families and the communities they come to call home. As one leveraged portion of a unique public-private partnership, FTT has the potential to serve as a national model for supporting successful reentry. Osborne seeks consideration under priority 1(A), as documented on page 14 of the proposal narrative, and under priority 1(B), as documented on page 17.