Exodus Transitional Community

Formerly Incarcerated Who’ve Turned Their Lives Around
I’ve been volunteering at Exodus for about half a year now. It is absolutely full of inspiring stories.
The concept is that it is a transitional community for people who have been recently incarcerated. It claims to be the only faith-​based such community in New York. The philosophy is that when someone gets out of prison, they already have all the tools they need to go right into society — into the workforce, housing, medical care, etc. The «transition period» is relatively short, and Exodus never makes the assumption that one of its clients doesn’t have the capacities to start making an immediate social and economic contribution.
It’s run almost entirely by formerly incarcerated people. My superior was in prison for 24 years. The guy who founded the place was locked up for 11 years. They know what it means to be in prison and the challenges that other ex-​cons face. So they can really tune their counseling to the needs of the particular client.
Exodus is the kind of place where you feel proud to work. It’s real, non-​stop, practical help for real people, with no pie-​in-​the-​sky philosophical sayings or useless aphoristic niceties. Exodus gets the work done on a day-​to-​day, hour-​to-​hour basis, without worrying about what it looks like or how people perceive it. As social service agencies go, it’s very efficient. So I feel like my volunteer time is going to direct, practical use.
If you know someone in prison or who just got out, a referral to Exodus is always an excellent choice. They’re at 123^rd and 3^rd in Harlem — the area known as «the block of convicts» because, I’ve been told, literally thousands of formerly incarcerated live within, like, four square blocks. But I’ve never felt unsafe there; indeed, my experience at Exodus has taught me that formerly incarcerated people are not to be feared, and in many cases, serve as role models for the rest of us, in their ability to endure and turn their lives around in the face of horrible stigma.