Resources:
Rylee Barnsdale's Feature Article: Returning citizens find jobs, support, occupational therapy through Ypsi nonprofit
Life After Incarceration: Transition & Reentry (LAITR)
Supportive Hands in Neighborhood Enhancement (SHINE)
Transcription:
Rylee Barnsdale: You're listening to 89 one WEMU. I'm Rylee Barnsdale, and this is On the Ground Ypsi. The work being done for returning citizens at the Ypsilanti-based nonprofit, Life After Incarceration: Transition and Reentry, or LAITR, cannot be understated. From providing occupational therapy to providing employment opportunities, LAITR's staff hopes to provide every single justice impacted person with the opportunities to engage with their community. Joining me today is Leroy Harris, a LAITR client turned board member, to tell us about his experience working with later and the personal successes that work has led him to. Hi, Leroy! Thanks so much for being here!
Leroy Harris: Good morning! How are you?
Rylee Barnsdale: I'm not too bad. I'm happy to have you on the line with us. I am sure you are tired of answering the "Why were you incarcerated?" question.
Leroy Harris: Yup.
Rylee Barnsdale: So, I would love to skip ahead a little bit in your timeline and ask you what that first day or week or even month was like after you were released. What kinds of challenges did you have to handle when you were back in your community?
Leroy Harris: I did 35 years in prison. So, when I came home, I was a little sheltered. I was dealing with a lot of social anxiety. I didn't know where my first meal was going to come from. I didn't know where my clothes were coming from. I didn't know too much about anything or what was going to happen. And that was basically what it was. I was let out of prison in a situation where I didn't know what was going to happen.
Rylee Barnsdale: At the time, what did support look like for you? Was there any? Was there family, friends, or maybe other organizations or programs you tried to take advantage of? Or were you really just kind of high and dry once you were back?
Leroy Harris: I have family members. My brother, he made sure I got all my stuff done, like my medical stuff, my license. My first day out with him--he wanted to make sure I got all my important stuff done, and I got all that done the first day out. But one thing, the state had me on a program, a program hooked me up with some people called Catholic Social Services. They did bring me clothing. I got into another program called GSHAid. They trained me in quality control, which helped me to get my first actual job. And then, I met an occupational therapist. OT was the most powerful thing I've done since I've been home. Because, like, the issues of having social anxiety, they help me through those issues--the issues of being withdrawn. They help me through those issues. They inspired me to go out and do leisure activities. I was having problems sleeping. They helped me with my sleep issues. As we went on, it's been like a year and a half now with LAITR, and we've grown like a family. They've helped me learn how to read the labels, all of the stuff I buy from the store, or goods from the store. They helped with nutrition. They've helped me with relationship stuff. It's been so much they actually helped me with that. It's a lot we can talk about, really?
Rylee Barnsdale: Sure!
Leroy Harris: Yeah, because it's like, to be honest without them. I wouldn't be who I am today. And then, for them to actually put me on their board of directors--LAITR's board of directors--and then got me slated for a job with them. We're waiting on the grant right now for me to actually get employment to get paid to do the work that I do. So, they inspired me in a lot of ways. They're an inspiration to me. Actually, it helped to organize and build my own agency. So, I have my own company. I'm a business owner.
Rylee Barnsdale: Oh wow!
Leroy Harris: I have a contract right now with the DRC, the Washtenaw Community Dispute Resolution Center. So, I'm developing and I'm facilitating programs for young teenagers like 14, 15, 16-year-olds. So, that's the part of work that I'm doing now. But I have to owe it to those ladies in the beginning that helped me to get my mind together, really? You know, if it wasn't for Elyse and Spencer, I got to say that I don't think I would be in the place that I am today. Like how we're talking right now, if it was not for those occupational therapist sessions, I wouldn't be able to talk to you the way I'm talking to you right now.
Rylee Barnsdale: So, we got a lot to thank the folks over at LAITR for then, it sounds like.
Leroy Harris: Yes, a lot!
Rylee Barnsdale: This is WEMU's On the Ground Ypsi. I'm Rylee Barnsdale, chatting with LAITR client and board member Leroy Harris. Leroy, as you just described and you are well aware of, the occupational therapists over at LAITR work to help justice-involved individuals gain life skills, build healthy habits, work through personal barriers like you'd mentioned: social anxiety and those kinds of things. If you don't mind sharing even more, what were some of the goals that you went into occupational therapy with? And how did occupational therapy really help you reach those?
Leroy Harris: I think, in the beginning, I came home, and I didn't have any goals--honestly, I'm going to say, when I came home. I think that going through therapy helped me to develop goals, and the goals that I had developed was one goal I had was to get my own business. Another goal was for me to be able to hone in on the skills that I've learned while I was in prison. Like when I was in prison, I was a therapeutic mentor at the prison.
Rylee Barnsdale: Okay.
Leroy Harris: So, I taught the violence prevention program in prison to prisoners that were going home. I provided violence prevention program to them. So, when I got home, in my mind, I wanted to be able to hone in on those skills and be able to teach those same skills out here in society to young kids, so they won't make the same mistakes I made that landed me in prison. So, it was like goals like that is what they helped me to actually accomplish, even with dealing with the computer stuff. I was computer illiterate. I didn't know anything about computers. I at least sat there through hours and hours and hours, teaching me how to log on to my computer, how to do just simple things, like how to get to my email. You know, those are things I didn't know that they taught me.
Rylee Barnsdale: And as you also described, your relationship with LAITR has continued to thrive even beyond just the therapy kind of side of things. You are a member of the Supportive Hands in Neighborhood Enhancement, or SHINE initiative, that they have as well, which is a community clean-up initiative that you are also compensated for. And you are a board member, as we mentioned. But I'm curious about kind of where this desire to be so deeply involved with this kind of organization comes from. Is it just because of the kind of help and aid they provided you or is it you support the mission that they have? Where does that passion come from?
Leroy Harris: I think it comes from me understanding that I've done some bad things in my life, and I just want to be a better person. It comes from there. It also comes from the help and assistance they show me. It's like, to a degree, I feel like I owe them to be a better person I want to be, because they were the first people that actually took a chance on me. You know, most people coming out of prison, people don't want to take a chance on them.
Rylee Barnsdale: Right.
Leroy Harris: I did 35 years in prison. I was convicted of murder. With me coming home, most people don't want to take a chance on a murderer. They don't. That's just real. But to have these women taking a chance on me and not to be afraid to give me a chance, that's how you help men coming home develop the skills they learned when they were in prison. You got to give them a chance.
Rylee Barnsdale: Right.
Leroy Harris: You got to put them in a situation where they can actually hone in on the skills that they have and the things that they know. And that's what I found from LAITR.
Rylee Barnsdale: This is WEMU's On the Ground Ypsi. I'm talking with Life After Incarceration: Transition and Reentry board member Leroy Harris. So, Leroy, you talked about the goals you were able to set through your work with LAITR. And I'm wondering. What about now? Now that we're here today, what do the goals look like for Leroy today? What are the kinds of things you want to accomplish now that you have been able to hone these skills and you have this newfound confidence kind of under your belt as a result of that work?
Leroy Harris: Well, one of my major goals is to hire more people for my company and to clean up the streets. My idea is to put chains on the outside of all the prisons and jails that we don't let nobody else in. That's my creative way of looking at it. I really want to be in a position to teach younger children how to make the right decisions in life. That's what it's all about with me. And that's, like, my major goal right there. And to get my life in order, like I want to be able to have a home. I want to be able to have a wife. I want to be able to have children and do the things I don't have. These things that I want to be here. For a long time, I didn't talk about this, but when I got out, there was a lot of places that wouldn't let me move in. Like, I couldn't get a place. I had to sleep in my car. I had to really to figure it out because they didn't have places for guys coming out of prison. They didn't have homes for them. You know, nobody wanted us there. They didn't have jobs for us. No prison provides specifically ex-felons jobs in our society. I'm just glad that LAITR was able to take a chance on me and on some of the guys that I work with because they are great guys. And I think that if we have more people in society that would take a chance and allow us to develop the skills that we know or even teach the skills that we can actually develop, then I think that we can get help more people coming out and stop the recidivism rate. We can stop people from going back and hurting our community.
Rylee Barnsdale: And I'll wrap up our conversation here by asking you, obviously, the therapy and the work LAITR staff does with its clients is tailored to each individual experience. But I wonder if there are any words of wisdom that you've picked up that you can share with us, whether you are justice involved or if you know someone who is justice involved or if you're just out in our community trying to make it better for everybody here.
Leroy Harris: I think that one of the major things I learned from a therapist--I came out in therapy like asking her how to do certain things, and she reversed it on me all the time. And she would never tell me what to do. She would always have me to think of things to do and how I would do it. And then, when I told her how I would do it, she would be like, You see, Leroy! You got it! You just don't know you got it!" But that right there gave me the confidence that I needed in order to be successful in everything I'm doing right now. Because she made me realize that I can do the things that I thought I couldn't do. And it was only because the way that she did therapy with me. And I think if we have more people like that in our lives that really care, don't try to take care of us, but teach us how to take care of ourselves. It makes a difference!
Rylee Barnsdale: Thank you so much for being here today, Leroy! And thank you for sharing some of your story with us.
Leroy Harris: Yes, ma'am!
Rylee Barnsdale: I know that there are pieces of it that I'm sure are difficult to talk about, but it really shows what perseverance can look like in a person. So, thank you very much! We really appreciate it!
Leroy Harris: Thank you for the interview!
Rylee Barnsdale: For more information on today's topic and links to the full article, visit our website at wemu.org. On the Ground Ypsi is brought to you in partnership with Concentrate Media. I'm Rylee Barnsdale, and this is your community NPR station, 89 one WEMU FM Ypsilanti.
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