County Commissioners approve funds for inmate re-entry housing at June 9 meeting

At its June 9 meeting, the Orange County Board of Commissioners worked on their upcoming fiscal year budget, including passing a motion for funding a new re-entry house in Orange County for men who have recently finished their sentences at Orange Correctional Center. 

Commissioner Sally Greene requested $20,000 be moved from the county’s Social Justice Fund to Reentry House Plus, Inc., a nonprofit which aims to open the re-entry house for former inmates by September 2020. Greene said the nonprofit aligns with the county’s current criminal justice resource work.

Because Reentry House Plus, Inc. is a nonprofit agency, it will be added to the outside agencies list.

The money would be granted to the nonprofit to help people living there pay rent until they can find a job, Greene said.

“They fully plan for their residents to be working, paying rent,” Greene said. “But surely there’ll be times when their residents are not able to work, and they’ll be able to cover it with their funds, but they really expect their folks to be working. So, after they’re up and running, they’ll not need much further assistance to pay the rent.”

However, County Commissioner Penny Rich said she was concerned about funding the project because Reentry Plus, Inc. lobbied the Board for the funding, whereas other nonprofits did not. 

County Manager Bonnie Hammersley said using the Social Justice Fund for this project also raised some concerns.

“One of the things we always want to be careful about is that the Social Justice Fund doesn’t become a bidding fund, because it’s really out there for the Board to make decisions on social justice issues that they feel,” Hammersley said.

Hammersley said the COVID-19 pandemic has put pressure on decisions of funding outside agencies and how to use the Social Justice Fund. She said there have been no new funds given to agencies this year, besides healthcare providers.

Commissioner Earl McKee said this fund would help some Orange County residents get a "hand up" as they re-enter society.

“These are some folks, as I understand it, that are getting out, they need a hand up, a little help, and so I’m going to support this,” McKee said. “The social justice fund, to me, was set up to do exactly this, to help folks get a little hand up.”

Despite concerns over how to treat this project, the members of the Board, including Commissioner Mark Marcoplos, maintained that a program like the re-entry house fulfills the purpose the Social Justice Fund was established for.

“This is the type of program that the Social Justice Fund was created for, I believe,” Marcoplos said. “It fills a real need in the county, and it is all about social justice and racial equity, so I’m comfortable supporting it, funded by the Social Justice Fund.”

Commissioners Renee Price, Jamezetta Bedford, Mark Dorosin, McKee and Greene voted to pass the motion, while Rich voted against. 

The Board also voted to fund the development of a Racial Equity Index Platform, which will track the progress of Orange County’s racial equity initiatives and analyze the trends of racial disparity.

The Board discussed an education fund focused on COVID-19, but the motion to set up the fund did not pass. The education fund would have helped provide access to broadband in the county's rural areas.

The Board voted to cut the Visitors Bureau Fund expenditures by $19,308 and increase the Solid Waste Enterprise fund budget.

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