Stories and Articles
Justice 4 Housing featured in United Way’s Changemakers Series! Justice for Housing (J4H), one of United Way’s 124 New Way Forward partners, is a grassroots organization providing housing and family...
Raymond Gaines, Who Served Nearly 50 Years for Murder He Says He Didn’t Commit, Gets GPS Removed A man who spent nearly 50 years in prison for a murder he...
New Commonwealth Fund Awards $3 million in Grants to Mass. Nonprofits Addressing Racial Inequity The New Commonwealth Racial Equity and Social Justice Fund (NCF) announced Tuesday that it is awarding...
Massachusetts Budget Vetoes Ripple Through Service Sectors Reentry services, job training programs and rest homes could soon feel the impact of Gov. Maura Healey’s budget vetoes that were left intact...
New Ballot Boxes Arrive to Boston Jails this Fall New ballot boxes will be available in Suffolk County jails this fall to kick off an expansion of voting opportunities for...
Life After Prison: “Don’t Judge Me” GBH News Documentary Onyx White, an aspiring rapper, is attempting to launch a music career and build his life in Boston. And he is...
Health Care Gaps Create Reentry Hurdle for Incarcerated Individuals Leslie Credle, CEO of Justice 4 Housing, emphasized the importance of providing proper health care to those who are incarcerated, noting...
You Can Never Get That Time Back: Solitary Confinement is Devastating for Incarcerated Mothers and their Children Leslie Credle couldn’t stomach the thought of her children seeing her that way:...
During Second Chance Month, AG Campbell and Boston Medical Center Co-Host Reentry Roundtable BOSTON — Today, Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, in partnership with Boston Medical Center, hosted the AGO’s first...
Returning Citizens Find Success in Boston Reentry Program Arminta Graham, one of the graduates, said she had a hard time getting housing due to her criminal record. She never imagined...
Religious Leaders, Community Activists Call for Increased Funding to Maintain Affordable Housing Stock The Greater Boston Interfaith Organization is calling on the Massachusetts Legislature to pass a handful of measures...
Major Barriers Persist for Former Prisoners Who Need IDs Supreme Hassan says he was released from prison in August without a state-issued ID — a document considered crucial to succeeding...
Housing Fixes, ID Cards Top of To-Do List for GBIO Forum in Ashmont Last Thursday at First Baptist Church on Ashmont Street in Dorchester, the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO)...
Boston Receives Largest Ever Grant to Address Homelessness (The Center Square) – Boston Mayor Michelle Wu announced yesterday that the city had received a $47 million grant, its largest ever...
Life After Prison: Long Journey Home GBH hosts a panel with local experts about challenges and success for the recently released from incarceration, part of its ongoing series Life After...
Women coming home from prison get little help rebuilding Leslie Credle, executive director of Justice 4 Housing, says the group has helped 29 women and 45 men so far. But...
Panel discusses barriers to housing for formerly incarcerated people Advocacy is important, Credle said, but changing the law is the only way to “get to the core issues,” otherwise “nothing is...
Patchwork of government services leaves former prisoners in the hands of strained nonprofits Housing: The first and highest hurdle Housing remains a huge barrier to successful reentry, according to dozens...
Boston invests $1 million to help people returning from prisons and jails Boston will distribute $1 million in grants to organizations that provide services for people leaving prisons and jails...
‘To Heal as a Society, We Have to Help with Housing’ Emily Rooney Clark ’24 helps clients navigate housing barriers through summer internship Emily Rooney ’24 spent the summer entrenched...
Pressley, Tlaib Unveil Bill To Increase Housing Access For People With Criminal Records WASHINGTON – Today, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (MI-12) unveiled the Housing for Formerly...
Supporters Look to Gain Support in Sealing Certain Criminal Records By Ellen Fleming BOSTON (WWLP) – A legislative briefing Wednesday at the State House brought out support in hopes of...
Leslie Credle Joins Haymarket Funding Panel Leslie Credle, the Founder and Executive Director of Justice 4 Housing, has joined the Haymarket People’s Fund as part of their funding panel. Credle...
The Supreme Judicial Court returned to the issue earlier this month in a case involving a Dorchester District Court judge’s denial of an expungement request by a defendant for two sets of records involving possession of small quantities of marijuana dating back more than 15 years...
Elugardo answered questions from Jamaica Plain News about her candidacy, bills she's sponsored to help incarcerated individuals, redistricting, and more...
Three-quarters of a million New Yorkers have convictions in their history. ‘Fair chance’ laws could change their lives...
“These extraordinary innovators should inspire us all to harness our own talents and imagination to support transformational efforts for a more equitable world.”...
On Nov. 5, ACT UP Boston, labor leaders, frontline harm reductionists, housing advocates, contingents of students, folks who have been houseless and people who use drugs converged on City Hall for a protest press conference and speak-out...
300+ people took part in a 90-mile march from Springfield to the Massachusetts State Housein September to demand an end to new prison and jail construction. The march and the organizing behind it marks major growth in the movement for prison abolition in Massachusetts...
As states pass new laws to reform solitary confinement, advocates are pushing for this harmful practice to be fully abolished...
Massachusetts families spend about $25 million each year on phone calls to incarcerated relatives, a nonprofit advocacy group says...
Today, a 90-mile march, the “Long March for No New Prisons and Jails,” ended at the Massachusetts State House with 100 abolitionists and supporters rallying and holding a press conference...
Activists and state representatives spoke to and reviewed acts for changes to public housing policy in the Commonwealth during a virtual public hearing Wednesday afternoon...
State moving forward with plan for new women’s prison despite small population...
Documents show HDR, Inc. has monitored groups that oppose its controversial plans to build jails and highways...
It wasn’t until in-person visits were suspended last year that Jennings realized how much it costs for people in jail to talk to those outside: around $5 for a 15-minute call to some local landlines, $9.99 for a 15-minute call to a cellphone...
Lawmakers and courts have made headway in reforming or ending solitary, but some corrections departments are finding loopholes to perpetuate the practice...
Recounting stories of trauma and suffering behind bars, dozens of formerly incarcerated Bay Staters, families of inmates and advocates urged lawmakers Tuesday to order a temporary halt on construction of new correctional facilities and redirect resources toward community-based alternatives...
COVID-19 postponed trials and closed courthouses across New England, leading to concerns about timely due process as the system reopens...
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Friday published a proposal to the Federal Register that would rescind the department’s 2020 disparate impact rule and restore the 2013 discriminatory effects rule...
A five-year study by the Boston Foundation makes the case that housing instability threatens the health of low-income Boston area residents...
A man incarcerated at MCI Norfolk managed to get on the roof of one of the prison buildings Sunday, threatening to jump, according to other prisoners, because he was distraught he wasn't getting medical treatment...
A man incarcerated at MCI Norfolk managed to get on the roof of one of the prison buildings Sunday, threatening to jump, according to other prisoners, because he was distraught he wasn't getting medical treatment...
The effort to bail out Black moms before Mother's Day is more urgent than ever...
Says investing in incarceration is opposite of what Mass. needs...
The U.S. spends $81 billion a year on mass incarceration, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and that figure might be an underestimate...
The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls is calling on President Joe Biden to grant clemency to 100 women in his first 100 days in office...
The communities most affected by incarceration and violence are organizing to elect leaders to shrink the punishment bureaucracy and to invest instead in addressing the root causes of harm by investing in safety and health...
Democratic Reps. Cori Bush, of Missouri, and Ayanna Pressley, of Massachusetts, added their voices to an initiative that calls on President Joe Biden to grant 100 women clemency in his first 100 days...
Advocate Leslie Credle on the prison lockdown after COVID...
For more than a year, the Massachusetts Department of Correction has been trying to build a new women’s prison...
Testimony came from women of all ages representing numerous Metrowest communities and advocacy groups...
As prison outbreaks rise, the state has moved inmates forward in the line to receive inoculations...
A bombshell announcement was made by U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling’s office on Tuesday...
Conditions for prisoners with mental health issues at the Massachusetts Department of Correction violate the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, an investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division has found...
One of the most well-documented harms of incarceration is the way it tears families apart. More than 2.7 million children in the United States have a currently incarcerated parent, including 11 percent of Black children and 4 percent of Latino children...
Charles Hamilton Houston Institute co-authors amicus briefs in landmark Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court cases...
The issue of incarceration and racial justice in prisons has again become part of national debate following months of protests spurred by the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis police custody...
The coronavirus has added an element of chaos to every system of our community. For those systems that were complicated, or under-resourced to begin with, the chaos is multiplied...
Our global pandemic forced us to grapple with truths we always knew but too often ignored. One of those truths is the direct relationship between one’s housing and one’s health. They are inextricably linked...
By mid-June, 85 of the 183 women in MCI Framingham—46 percent—had tested positive for the virus, according to Massachusetts Department of Correction (MDOC) data compiled by the ACLU of Massachusetts...
“There’s a feasible, actionable solution: we need them to be released immediately,” the rally organizers wrote in an online bulletin...
As of April 10, Massachusetts has reported the 4th most confirmed cases of COVID-19 of any state in the U.S. As the virus spreads, local organizers are raising concerns about the well-being of the incarcerated population...
As has happened since the start of the pandemic in prisons across the country, a COVID-19 outbreak hit SMCC at the end of January...