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Ex-offenders get help and advice from Clarett
YOUNGSTOWN
The people with whom one associates are critical to one’s future path, former Ohio State University football standout Maurice Clarett told an audience at Youngstown State University’s Kilcawley Center.
“Separate yourself from who you were with when you got into the trouble,” Clarett urged ex-offenders who are trying to live a new life.
Clarett spoke at Wednesday’s Hope Conference, which offered a host of services to help former prisoners adjust to, and function successfully in, their new lives as free people.
“Everything comes down to who you surround yourself with,” said Clarett, who served 31/2 years in prison on aggravated-robbery and concealed-weapon charges and was released in April 2010.
“Show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future,” he said.
“If you’re around a bunch of dudes who lose, you’re going to lose,” he warned.
Clarett, 31, who had 80 speaking engagements around the country in 2013 and 2014, said he is now in the packaging, trucking and rental-home businesses.
The conference, which was free, was organized by a collaboration of Mahoning County agencies that assist people returning from prison to society to regain their lives and livelihoods.
Among the services represented at the event were driver’s license reinstatement with the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles on-site, child-support guidance, housing and energy assistance, employment opportunities with companies hiring on site, medical care resources and referrals, transportation assistance, clothing and household needs, emergency shelter and financial counseling.
“We can really be successful and overcome some of the mistakes of our past,” with motivation and use of the proper resources, said Rebecca Soldan of Youngstown.
Soldan, a forum panelist, said she spent 18 months in prison on a robbery charge, which she said resulted from her need for money to support her heroin addiction.
She is program director for United Returning Citizens, a conference sponsor, which helps formerly incarcerated people obtain peer support, training and assistance with re-entry into the community.
Soldan, 34, said she was released from prison six years ago and has nearly seven years of sobriety.
“I was very privileged to have a supportive family and access to education,” Soldan said.
She added, however, “I knew women who got dropped off at the bus station with just a box and were kind of just sent on their way” after serving their prison terms, she said.
“What I hope is that we can start investing less in prisons and more in treatment,” Soldan said. “They deserve access to health treatment, rather than just incarceration,” she said of drug addicts.
Among those in attendance were Mayor John A. McNally, city police Chief Robin Lees, City Prosecutor Dana Lantz and YSU president and former OSU football coach Jim Tressel.
A major goal of law enforcement and prosecution is “to provide a safe community for our citizens and to ensure quality of life,” Lantz observed.
“We want to ensure that they don’t come back to court,” Lantz said of former offenders. “We want to give them the tools to stay out of that lifestyle.”
Among the organizations providing ongoing assistance to returning citizens is Home for Good, 20 Federal Plaza, Suite M8, downtown Youngstown, at 330-743-3700.