MISSION STATEMENT

The Upward Mobility Foundation will assist the formerly incarcerated with budget-friendly housing in a safe, drug-free environment, as well as reliable transportation in order to help them re-establish their self-worth as a contributing member of society.  Our goal is to raise enough money to purchase or build an establishment that will house up to 100 residents (both male and female) in single-unit apartment homes.  We also will sell affordable, reliable used cars exclusively to the formerly incarcerated population who are within the first 12 months of their release and face challenges securing personal transportation due to lack of finances and/or a poor credit rating.

CORE BELIEFS

- The lack of affordable housing and transportation leaves returning citizens competing for the same limited resources with others who have no criminal history.

- Excluding formerly incarcerated people from stable housing harms not only individuals, but public safety and the economy at large.  States should create clear-cut systems to help recently released individuals find homes. 

- Cities and states need to ban the box on housing applications, ensuring that public housing authorities and landlords evaluate housing applicants as individuals, rather explicitly exclude them for a criminal record.  This practice unnecessarily goes beyond what is required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

- Cities should end the criminalization of homelessness. Arresting, fining, and jailing homeless people for acts related to their survival funnels formerly incarcerated people through the “revolving door” of punishment, which reduces the chance of successful reentry at a great cost to public safety.

STATS

Each year, more than 700,000 individuals nationwide are released from prison and return to their communities.  An additional 9 million are released from county jails.  Returning citizens are almost 10 times more likely to become homeless than the general population according to a report by the Prison Policy Initiative, a nonprofit based in Northampton, Massachusetts.  

More than 15% of people coming in and out of prisons and jails are homeless in the months preceding and following their incarceration (Council of State Governments, 2016).

According to another Prison Policy Initiative study, States of Incarceration: The Global Context, Tennessee has a higher incarceration rate than the U.S. average, and other stable democracies. Almost half of those released from custody will find themselves incarcerated within three years.  According to World Population Review, Tennessee’s three-year recidivism rate is 47.1%.