Amity Foundation and CASA of Los Angeles, two nonprofit organizations that work with former inmates to reintegrate into society, received $1 million and $640,000, respectively, to help people avoid re-offending in criminal activity.
Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove (California’s 37th District), accompanied by Adrianne Todman, acting secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), presented the symbolic checks: $1 million for the Amistad Foundation, to renew the residential reentry facility located south of Grand Street, and increase care capacity for the current 184 residents.
The Amistad Foundation is dedicated to the inclusion and empowerment of people marginalized due to addiction issues, traumatic experiences, incarceration, poverty, racial or sexual discrimination, homelessness, and violence.
Gathered in the courtyard of the building where former inmates returned to a home after being incarcerated, Doug Bond, executive director of the Amity Foundation, was grateful to be able to celebrate the family reunification of children and families where “there are those ties that connect again in the community to make sure we are healing entire families and really thinking about everyone as a whole.”
Meanwhile, CASA of LA received funding for its Transitional Age Youth Program, which serves individuals ages 12 to 17, and non-minor dependents ages 18 to 21 who are in the child welfare system who are in risk of entry or re-entry into the justice system.
CASA of Los Angeles (CASA/LA) organizes the community to take action and advocate for children and families in Los Angeles County’s overburdened child welfare and juvenile justice systems.
Through an intentional, restorative, and culturally relevant lens, CASA/LA trains committed, consistent, and caring adults who provide equitable access to life-affirming resources and connections for youth.
4,000 homeless youth
“There are stories that are very hard, mixed with a lot of things that might be difficult for many to understand,” said Congresswoman Kamlager-Dove. “The pressures in our communities, the pressure to be some kind of man and everything that means when maybe you just want to learn how to be yourself and be okay in a space.”
For this reason, she stated that she wanted to be a traveling companion in that discovery of the person, with ups and downs to achieve security and peace, which is difficult to achieve when you do not have a place to stay, nor a family that supports the person. , or the human being does not feel safe.
“That is the essence of the Amity Foundation and CASA of Los Angeles,” he stressed, and thanked its leaders, who serve numerous young people, knowing that half of those in foster care who do not have safe housing are in Los Angeles County.
Indeed, according to Myfriendsplace.org, Los Angeles County is home to one of the largest populations of homeless youth in the country, with more than 4,000 youth without safe housing on any given night.
Congresswoman Kamlager-Dove said, “HUD is supposed to help us find housing, create a space where [los jóvenes] They can share their own stories so that the government can listen to them and all work to offer solutions.”
“A difficult journey”
CASA LA staff member Sherrie Bradford described that although she has a cheerful personality, it wasn’t always that way.
“You’ll soon find out why my nickname is Sherita,” she said. “Growing up, I always knew I was different.”
She was six or seven years old when she discovered that her biological parents were not by her side.
“My skin color was different, my hair was different,” she said. “And at the age of 18, my mother met the crack and would spend the next 30 years fighting that addiction.”
For years, Sherrie struggled with feelings of abandonment, resentment and wondering why her mother had chosen drugs, instead of her daughter.
“Navigating the foster care system was a difficult journey,” she described. “My Mexican-American guardians often overlooked my cultural needs, leaving me feeling isolated, even though they took me in when I was four months old.”
Sherrie said she endured a lot of abuse that left lasting scars.
“When I turned 21 they kicked me out, forcing me into a world I was unprepared for and lacked vital transition skills,” she said. “I faced homelessness for six to eight months, I became a statistic, when I thought I would never be that way.”
The African American woman said she thinks about how her life would have been different if she had a home, if her caregivers had been by her side, and with their support she could have finished Community College sooner.
“I could have found stable housing. “I should not have been forced to take medication, live in fear of handling my own vital documents and feel unable to obtain a driver’s license and live a life of independence and success,” she added.
“My cultural identity, also as an African-American girl, deserved recognition and care,” she adds. “If my needs had been advocated for in court I could have developed pride and confidence in who I was, and ultimately, with the right support, my journey could have transformed from a struggle to one of empowerment.”
Her story, she said, highlights the crucial need to understand advocacy in the foster care system.
“I hope that inspires all of you to change,” he said.
What does the federal government really do?
Acting HUD Secretary Adrianne Todman shared that a college student asked somewhat cynically: What does the federal government really do?
“Your federal government in action is responding to the needs of your community,” Todman said, referring to the funding awarded to the Amity Foundation and CASA of Los Angeles. “This is what it feels like to have the federal government working for you.”
Explains that intentional leaders are required to secure funding. [Sydney Kamlager-Dove] that they defend people in need, “not large corporations.”
The story of Oscar Alexis Mejía
At 37 years old, Oscar Alexis Mejía affirms that everything is written in his life, because every time he enters the Amity Foundation facilities (Fundación Amistad) he remembers that he spent nine months of transition there to reintegrate into society.
“I went out [de la cárcel] on January 23, 2023. If you know the process, you enter with a blue uniform,” he declares. “I didn’t know what the future held when I walked into this building.”
Oscar Alexis Mejía used substances that led him to commit crimes and at the age of 25 he went to prison.
After being released and meeting great people from the Friendship Foundation, his life took a radical turn.
From the beginning, love was present. Everyone started calling him by his usual name.
What is your name? And I said: Oh, Mejía.”
They said, “No, what is your real name? And I said, Oscar. So now I started to become Oscar, that person who was in prison for 10 years.”
Then the human being’s shell began to break as soon as it entered that space.
And then, naturally, he wanted to play tough, because he himself came from a place like that. But it was difficult for him to try to put up a facade in a place where they were automatically giving his soul peace.
“Unknowingly, I used to sit here alone at four in the morning. I prayed, read my Bible and listened to that source of inspiration: God,” he said. “I didn’t know how big that was going to be for my transition.”
“When I felt like I was alone, I realized that I was never alone,” he told Real America News. “The reason? God was always with me, and I support myself with Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior…Through that process of Jesus I was guided.”
But Oscar Alexis Mejía did not understand how important his next step was going to be: going out into society.
“I never…never got to experience this,” he narrated. “I don’t come from a place, from a home where we can wake up in a fountain or a beautiful tree to pray,” he said.
When he came to Amity Foundation he received a lot of love. People tried to help him and he no longer rejected them. He was open to the healing of his soul.
But the most important thing is that his re-entry into society did not end there. When he made the transition he thought of two words: family reunification.
“I didn’t even know what those words meant,” he recalled. “I have family that lives 20 minutes away.” [del 3745 S. Grand Avenue de Los Angeles] and we still don’t know each other.”
Oscar Alexis Mejía emphasizes that, in his family, as in the lives of many people in the low-income Latino community, the structural family dynamic does not exist because the parents have two jobs and the children are always alone, surrounded by environments of alcoholism, domestic violence or gang violence.
“It wasn’t like coming home, waiting, and sitting at the table having dinner together,” he says.
But he came to the Amity Foundation and created a new family.
“Here, I had to pass the salad, the spaghetti, laughing and enjoying,” he mentions. “When I experienced that sensation I was crying, because I never had it in my house. It was a completely different world and that was how I was able to experience the love of a family.”
In fact, Oscar Alexis shared that he received a random text message from Danny Romero: “Hey, how are you, bro? How is everything going?”
“He didn’t have to text me; “I had already made the transition,” he said. “But, he said: I just want to tell you that I love you and I’m proud of you.”
The young Latino smiles at life, because, he says: “I can call Doug[Doug Bond, member of the Board of Directors of the Amistad Foundation]and many of the staff whenever I want. “That’s what family reunification means.”
Oscar Alexis Mejía realized that his immediate family does not have to be his family.
“I could create a family. And this is a place where every time I come it is emotional, because this is where it all started for me,” he said.
Grateful for the opportunity in life he was given, Oscar Alexis Mejía knows that many lives will change and, like him, they will expand his network of friends and “family.”