CLEVELAND — Kenyata Zapata was once incarcerated and has been a free man for 11 years. But he says the conviction still follows him, a situation many formerly incarcerated individuals face.
“If you can’t get a job, you are going to be in the streets,” Zapata said. “Therefore, it’s a cycle that never ends.”
He now has a job and has goals to invest in real estate and attended the TimeDone event on Aug. 27 to receive financial advice.
The TimeDone event held at the Frederick Douglass Community Center offered employment opportunities and different services focusing on housing or personal finance for people who have been convicted of a crime.
The Alliance for Safety and Justice launched the program and created a wall display listing the number of jobs that someone is disqualified from if they are convicted.
“These are actual laws and policies that stop people from getting jobs, from getting housing, from joining the PTA, from being to chaperone your kids field trip, coach little league,” said Jay Jordan, President of the Alliance for Safety and Justice.
Ed Little is part of the organization, and came from California. He said that some of these disqualifications have nothing to do with the crime someone committed.
“It just makes you wonder how people can exist, and can provide for themselves and their families, facing this overwhelming number of collateral consequences,” Little said.
Zapata said he hopes the advice he learns here can help him give back, to show that he has turned his life around.
“Maybe I can open up a battered women’s shelter one day, not even looking at my past anymore, being able to do something else for the community,” Zapata said.
