Story in the TU this morning about a fellow named Sean Thomas, who did time in prison for a drug offense and had been working at the Granger Lumber warehouse. He got the job through Ready4Work - an organization that helps ex cons find jobs. He worked at the warehouse for 2 years, earning a promotion in the process. The company was sold to Jacksonville ProBuild and Thomas was summarily fired. No reason was given, but the implication was that it was because of his past. This seems to me to be a really poor decision by ProBuild management. Makes me wonder - if a company treats it's employees this way, how will it treat it's stock holders and customers? Oh, BTW, Ready4Work was able to help Thomas find another job.
I am going to link this story so the readers of the blogs can read this story.
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/060908/met_288098446.shtml
The guy involved with this project is a stand up act. They just did a story in May in the Jacksonville Business Journal about Kevin Gay and his program. The story was Ex-offenders move from prison to jobs. Great article
Here is another link from a story done in 2007 where he was included in a book by Bill Clinton. What an awesome program and guy.
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/102007/met_210104196.shtml
The State of Florida will spend 20K to house an inmate. You could put 5 people through this program and they become taxpayers and productive citizens in the community. Everyone says where do you get the taxes to pay for these programs. We certainly come up with tax money to build prisons and house inmates. Recently they cut funding to the drug court program in the 4th District.
I would rather see taxdollars spent on Drug Court programs, Mental Health Court, Ready4Work than the continued revolving door to county and state prisons. The recidivism rates for these program are very low.
Those who just do their time and get out over half will return costing taxpaxers about $22,000 for each year they're locked up.
Kudos to Kevin Gay and his work with the program.
I guess we can see that ProBuild management doesn't feel the need to invest in the community in a positive way. Bad Corporate Partner for the area.
Maybe one day we will learn to make the right investments with our taxdollars. Those investments that make the biggest return in the community.