Support on wheels: Mobile center helps meet needs for formerly incarcerated people

Last November, Kerwin Pittman drove hours to Peachland, North Carolina — a town in Anson County — to buy a bus. 

On the drive back to Raleigh, he said, he was just hoping it wouldn’t break down. After all, he had a big dream for it.

Three months later, he has transformed the once “old and dusty” bus into the state’s first Mobile Recidivism Reduction Center.

Inside are two seating areas, a media station with a tablet and printer, and shelves stocked with hygiene kits, cold-weather gear and harm reduction supplies. There’s even a bathroom and a microwave to heat food. Positive affirmations adorn every wall.

On board, people with histories of incarceration — who have become specialists on how to reenter their communities after being in prison or jail — are eager to help connect people to benefits like Medicaid and Social Security, mental health and substance use treatment, housing options, education and much more. The goal is to provide the support people need to make a more successful transition from incarceration to the community.

On Jan. 17, the center made its first stop at Moore Square in downtown Raleigh.

A man who’d gotten out of prison days earlier was the first person to walk into the mobile reentry center; the only identification he had was a prison ID card. Pittman said he and his team immediately helped their first client start the process of obtaining a state ID. They connected him with free mental health services — something he said he needed to help him cope with the fact that his son died while he’d been in prison. They also found him housing, which allowed him to move out of a shelter.

Pittman said the recently released man left the bus smiling, headed to an appointment with his probation officer. It was a stark change from the tears he had shed when he first walked in with the weight of re-establishing his life in the community sitting heavier on his shoulders.

Within the first two hours on the bus that first day, Pittman and two other reentry specialists served more than 50 people. 

By the end of the day, they’d served close to 100.

“When we go to these communities, instead of kicking you down, we want to uplift you,” said Ciara Levy, a reentry specialist who works in the mobile center. “We want to let you know we see you. We care. We’re here to assist you.

“A lot of recidivism ends up happening because they’re scared.”

The mobile reentry center will travel the state and deliver services to communities with high needs for reentry support — hoping to help people overcome common barriers to getting re-established in their communities.  

By the end of the year, Pittman hopes to have three more mobile centers deployed across the state. He said the response to the first day in the community makes him want to reach that goal even faster.

“I’m definitely going to need more centers like this because there’s so much need, and I want to be as impactful as possible,” Pittman said.

He has some initial grants from foundations to get things up and running, but making this an ongoing service across the state will take more, and more consistent, funding — something that’s not always guaranteed from foundations. 

An innovative approach

Since his own release from prison in 2018, Pittman, now executive director of the nonprofit Recidivism Reduction Educational Program Services, has been working to enhance support for people recently released from incarceration. He knows that timely connections to resources are crucial to improving reentry success and to lowering recidivism rates in North Carolina. 

An April report released by the North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission found that from a sample of 12,889 people released from North Carolina state prisons in fiscal year 2021, 33 percent were sent back to prison within two years of their release. 

Pittman is on a mission to change that. From his own reentry experience, he knows that lack of transportation can put resources out of reach. That was his motivation to take services directly to people in need. 

“The mobile aspect is extremely important because when individuals are in directly impacted communities, it’s hard to go to different facilities and receive help,” Pittman said. “We wanted to quite literally meet them where they are and bring the help directly to them.”

After Pittman purchased the bus in November, he hired formerly incarcerated people to help him renovate and transform it.

By: Rachel Crumpler

Credit: North Carolina Health News