After leaving the Alexandria Detention Center, Mahogany Jones wants to be a nurse aide.
On Tuesday, the 20-year-old mother of two joined her fellow inmates for the annual resource fair in the jail gymnasium. Jones is set to be released at the end of July for a felony shoplifting charge, and says she never wants to come back.
“I want to spend time with my kids, get my IDs,” she told ALXnow. “I want to be a nurse aide, but also do home health care. I want to do that. In the future, I would also want to open my own assisted living facility”.
Latanya Ervin, the detention center’s inmate services director, organized dozens of nonprofits, city partners, and faith-based organizations to meet face-to-face to help inmates organize their individualized discharge plans. The jail conducts resource fairs and similar events throughout the year.
“The people on the cusp of being released are the priority,” Ervin said. “However, we have opened this recent resource fair up to all the residents, because reentry planning should start early, not when you’re leaving, so you can have a solid plan.”
Lisbeth Delcid, a program manager with Together We Bake, is a reentry expert. Like Jones, she’s a mother who also needed help after being released from jail.
“Everybody deserves a chance, a second chance, just to be a better version of themselves,” Delcid said. “Who’s going to hire you? Who’s going to take a leap of faith? You have to show up for yourself and work hard.”
Marshall Williams has spent the past 15 years as a case manager for Virginia Cares, offering wraparound services to help former inmates readjust to life on the outside. That means helping them get new IDs, set up their Medicaid, get housing referrals, and more. He also started working with the nonprofit after getting out of jail.
“Don’t let your mistakes define you,” Williams said. “Let them deliver you. Let the people see the difference in what you’ve done and how you can move forward.”
Natalia Johnson has been in jail on drug-related charges for seven months, and she’s got at least two years to go. Her dream is to become a realtor once she gets out.
“I’m obviously a salesman,” Johnson said, laughing. “You can still be a real estate agent as a felon. You just have to go before the board, and it’s a case-by-case basis sort of thing.”
Johnson said she’s spent a lot of time getting straightened out.
“When I first came (to jail), my whole world crashed because I almost lost everything,” she said. “But because I have a lot of support from the outside, I was able to hold on to some things. I had to change how I think, change a lot of things. I needed a lot of time to myself to think about who I want to become, and about what I wanted to let go of. So, I’m just recreating myself.”
