IMPACT At Work

By Kay Wilson, MBA

There are letters being sent to the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Prisons calling on the agencies to immediately release incarcerated individuals, who are either elderly or have chronic health conditions, to reduce the risk posed by Covid-19. The request came as the number of coronavirus cases grow throughout Ohio jails. As of the writing of this article there are 23 coronavirus related deaths at Pickaway Correctional Institution in central Ohio, according to the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. A guard and a prison nurse have also died.

There are some inmates who aren’t physically sick, but the situation is taking a mental toll. A recently interviewed prisoner said when some inmates in his cell block were ordered to the gym without being told why, one inmate replied “Well, I’m just going to go into the shower and hang myself.”

“There is so much anxiety about what is going on here with people’s health,” White added. “We view ourselves as an expendable population. ...So, when you see these type of numbers that are happening to us in prison, it’s almost expected – like, they (the authorities) don’t care.”

For James, A 74-year-old being released from prison after 46 years meant returning to a completely foreign Franklin County.

“It’s been very overwhelming, to say the least – something as simple as using a phone or riding the bus, interacting with family and just people in general. It’s a work in progress,” says James, who was released on parole from a state-run Ohio Correctional Facility in April after serving the maximum sentence for his first-degree robbery and drug charge convictions. We are withholding his last name to protect his privacy.

Prison left James with breathing issues and post-traumatic stress disorder – health issues that have compounded the broader challenge he faces adjusting to the world outside. However, he’s receiving treatment through programs at Alvis and IMPACT which seeks to help people like him, part of a population often forgotten or written off: older adults who have spent a considerable period of their lives behind bars, and who can return home lost, confused, aimless and alone.

The IMPACT Re-entry program has served 1,031 restored citizens coming back to Franklin County since 2009. Graduates of our program have a recidivism rate of less than 10%, 3 times better than the national recidivism average. Our case managers help recently incarcerated people transition upon their release.

The program works with local prisons and partner agencies, which serve restored

(L-R) Mujeddid Muhammad, Program Instructor (previous Re-entry Graduate); Jasmine Patterson, Self-Sufficiency Coordinator; Todd Lewis, Re-entry Manager

citizens. Many of the participants have spent decades in prison for drug crimes, some violent crimes, and find themselves without family or friends to help them adapt to their new life.

“What we do best is provide a steady arm for them as they’re navigating and transitioning from prison to the community,” says Todd Lewis, the program’s manager. Mirroring trends across the country, the Ohio prison population is aging – and aging quickly. The share of state and federal prisoners 55 or older has been projected to grow from about 11% in 2015 to more than 30% by 2030, according to a report prepared for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In Franklin County, the *state prison population fell by nearly 2.4% between 2007 and 2019, but the share of inmates 50 and older nearly doubled. (Prisonpolicy.org/profiles/OH.html) Jails and prisons are typically poorly equipped to handle the complex physical and behavioral health needs of older inmates, and often, programming within their walls only comes sparingly to help inmates prepare for release. Because of COVID-19, preparations prior to release have caught many off guard. Incarceration can exacerbate and accelerate the effects of aging. In the community, an older adult is typically someone aged 65 or older. In prison, that age is 55. Earlier than usual, these individuals experience symptoms like mobility impairment, difficulty bathing, dietary issues, hearing and eyesight impairment, and medical conditions like heart disease, cancer, arthritis, and diabetes. Often, people who have been incarcerated for much of their adult lives aren’t quite sure who they are outside the confines of prison, and need help reforming their identities – or forging new ones.

“You think about restarting your life, in terms of housing, job, technology and being healthy enough to live with newly found freedom – you think about that stuff,” Lewis says. “But figuring out who you are is something they all struggle with if they’ve

been in a long time.” Our program’s ability to continue during times of social distancing is still important because there is a dire need for support for (older) people coming home, who are even more vulnerable than a 25-year-old coming home from prison.

Ohio does have a program that allows elderly and severely ill prisoners to be released early from prison, and it could save state taxpayers millions of dollars a year. But, hundreds of the state’s elderly prisoners — many of whom prison officials acknowledge pose little or no risk of committing new crimes — aren’t allowed to apply, an ACLU investigation found.

More than 1,200 people age 60 and older were serving time in Ohio’s prisons as of Dec. 31, 2019, the most recent count available. By one estimate, the average cost to incarcerate each of them is $70,000 a year — for an annual total of $84 million. Last year, just four inmates were freed under the program.

Around the country, early release provisions for elderly and infirm prisoners are billed as a way to address problems such as prison overcrowding, skyrocketing budgets and civil rights lawsuits alleging inadequate medical care.

HOPE Fund Community Message

An Eviction Prevention Program

IMPACT Community Action is here to serve you We are working in partnership with the Housing Stabilization Coalition to help as many people as we can during this challenging time. Our current rental assistance program helps individuals and families prevent eviction and homelessness. Emergency need for our current service does not have to be COVID-19 related.

The need is high, so we expect extremely high call volume for this program and appointments may be full. We are scheduling appointments daily but they fill up quickly. Please call 1-866-747-1040 to check for available openings.

Starting June 1st, IMPACT will launch an online application process for rental assistance, found on IMPACT’s home page at WWW.IMPACTCA.ORG. You will no longer need an in-person appointment to apply for assistance. You will now be able to apply directly online. For those that do not have access to apply online, you may call the 1-800 number to schedule an appointment. IMPACT and its partners established the Hope Fund in order to prevent evictions and homelessness for families that have been impacted by COVID-19. Please stay tuned to our website and social media for updates to this program. If you need to reach an IMPACT customer service representative please call (614) 252 – 2799 or email us at

supportiveservices@impactca.org Q1. Who is priority at getting dollars from the Hope Fund?

Individuals or families that are at risk of eviction. (landlord notification required)

Q2. How many month’s rent are we paying

Up to three months not to exceed $3,000

Q3. What are the qualifications for Rent Assistance?

200% or below the Federal Poverty Level based on a household’s past 30-days proof of Income. The emergency need for assistance must be

COVID-19 related (i.e loss of job, childcare barriers, illness, etc)

Q4. How long does the process take to approve a rent application?

3 to 10 business days. Turn around time depends upon all documentation from the customer and landlord has been provided in a timely manner

Q5. What documents do I need?

ID, Social Security Card, 30 days Proof of Income, Lease, Eviction Notice,

Proof of sustainable income to pay rent moving forward and must be a

COVID-19 related emergency.

Q6. Will I need to get information from my landlord?

Yes. We will need your landlord’s name, number, email address so that we can send them a housing fee form and request a W9 to complete for processing.

Q7. Can I give the housing fee form and W9 to my landlord.

No. This information must be sent from the agency to the landlord.

Funding generously provided by: City of Columbus, Franklin County Commissioners, Columbus Foundation, Nationwide Insurance, United Way of Central Ohio, Crane Group, NiSource

with “Accelerated aging” and the lack of adequate healthcare makes the spread of Covid-19 in prisons more likely. Hand sanitizer is treated as contraband, as are many bacterial fighting cleaners like bleach.

The process for “Compassionate or Conditional Medical Release” is often difficult to navigate. Eligibility is often predicated on how terminal the incarcerated individual’s illness is; and with limited testing, close living quarters and a-symptomatic people, it is hard to limit the spread. If compassionate release is requested and granted too late, the person could die in prison. If it is requested too early or test results have not come in, that person could be denied eligibility for being too healthy. Throughout prisons, nationwide, more than 3,000 inmates applied for compassionate release and only 216 were granted. (*Projects.jsonline.com/ news/2019/4/18/release-programs-forsick-elderly-prisons-could-save-millions. html) Those on the front lines believe coronavirus in the jails is more widespread than reported because the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction is no longer conducting widespread testing in prisons. prisoners with symptoms and at release. The aged are at high risk of severe illness from COVID-19. The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction’s testing plan says that inmates nearing the end of their sentence should be tested about 10 days before release and if positive, be isolated. The plan also says, for positive cases, the prison should notify the health department where the person will live at least two days before release.

“We are testing when it is actionable, testing when it helps someone, testing when someone can be either quarantined safely away, not put in contact with someone else or when their health care is going to be impacted,” said corrections Director Annette Chambers-Smith.

All people released from prisons are said to receive an information packet on COVID-19, and are told to isolate themselves or selfquarantine.

Ohio didn’t continue mass testing at its prisons because, officials say, it didn’t help isolate and quarantine prisoners or stop the transmission of the virus in places like Marion Correctional Institution, where widespread testing done weeks after the first positive case there found over 80% of the prison population had the virus. Some Ohio prisons have dozens or more COVID-19 cases among inmates, while others only have a handful.

When ex-offenders are released back into society, they are expected to be law abiding, tax-paying citizens. However, unless they have programming to help them navigate to a routine, a sense of self and a job, there is no way they can accomplish both things. IMPACT would like to continue our programming in a way that is safe for participants, staff and the community. There are previously incarcerated individuals and we want to help them prepare and give them a chance to become a positive part of the community.

Kay Wilson serves as the Director for Strategic Initiatives at IMPACT Community Action where she guides their community engagement and development efforts. She is an author of two books, youth advocate, and servant leader. Kay graduated from the Ohio State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, her Masters from the University of Enugu, Nigeria in Mass Communications and an MBA from Ohio Dominican.