StepUp Durham Helps Formerly Incarcerated Residents Get Jobs And Monthly Stipends

DURHAM, NC – On January 5, 2023, ABC11 broadcast an interview with Tydricka Lewis, a 33-year-old mother of three, who exclaimed that she has gotten a job with the City of Durham four years after her six-year incarceration.

Her breakthrough was made possible by StepUp Durham, a resource-providing organization that aimed to help those who were formerly incarcerated get employed. During 2021-22, StepUp Durham helped 415 get a job, and 81 had their salaries raised to above $15 an hour.

“All of us have made mistakes,” Syretta Hill, executive director of StepUp Durham, said. “A lot of us have made mistakes and just weren’t caught, and some people were caught up in the system. And, you know, when people have done their time, there doesn’t need to be continued challenges for people to have a decent life.”

According to the organization, about 1.6 million North Carolinians – one in five adults – have a criminal record.

Hill said StepUp Durham was created to help those who have a criminal record get a job, and also keep the job.

The organization has a line of programs, which are called Work, Grow, Thrive, and Excel.

Since March 2022, 109 formerly incarcerated Durham residents have received monthly stipends of $600 through the Excel Pilot Program, which is administered by StepUp Durham. The pilot is slated to end in February. The one-year pilot was designed to “evaluate guaranteed income’s effects on recidivism and re-incarceration, employment, economic security, and income volatility.”

After receiving positive feedback on Durham’s guaranteed income pilot program for formerly incarcerated residents in the city, the nonprofit hopes for additional funding to continue its efforts. 

Proponents of the program have seen that these payments have curbed high recidivism rates — North Carolina’s statewide rates were over 40% less than 10 years ago — by guaranteeing some economic security. According to Excel Program Coordinator Shanti Callender, none of the 109 in the program have reoffended during the year of being in the program.

In the work program, the organization helps participants conduct job searches and mock interviews. In the second part, StepUp Durham teaches its participants how to keep their job and raise salary. Then, participants are taught to further develop themselves and get involved in the community.

Cashmere Bentley, the former applicant of the program, now is the manager of StepUp Durham. She wrote in an email that the program had a great impact on her, and she wanted to help others just like StepUp Durham helped her.

“When I was a participant StepUp equipped me with skills I didn’t even know I lacked, from interviewing to job searching. They also had many resources that I was able to take advantage of, one of them being the restorative housing program which allowed my family and I to go from a hotel to our own apartment. They helped me gain stable housing, employment, and skills that I can use for the rest of my lifetime,” she wrote.

Feature Image Credit: Blacknall Memorial Presbyterian Church