Fred

Fred lost count of how many times he had been in and out of prison, but as he sat in a cell at Allendale Correctional Institution serving a sentence for distribution of crack cocaine in late 2017, he decided he was never going back.

While he was still in prison, he interviewed with Soteria Community Development Corporation, a Greenville nonprofit that focuses on helping men who have been incarcerated successfully re-enter the community. 

A criminal conviction in South Carolina has 714 collateral consequences including ineligibility for student income tax credits, inability to live near a daycare center or school, forfeiture of notary commission, and ineligibility to hold certain jobs or earn state-issued professional licenses. 

About 700,000 people are released from state and federal prisons each year. Within three years of their release, about two-thirds will be rearrested. With no job, no money, and no place to live, many find themselves in the same conditions that landed them in prison in the first place. Soteria has helped more than 5,000 men and women reenter the community after their releases. 

Housing is the most important because it is difficult to go to work if you had to sleep on the ground or in a tent the night before. 

Fred, who said he tried crack cocaine for the first time when he was 21 and quickly became addicted, was able to get a bed in Soteria’s residential program. There’s a six-month wait for one of the 16 beds, and men in the program stay for up to a year. 

Fred started working at the Greenville restaurant Kitchen Sync three months after his release. He began as a dishwasher and has worked his way up to prep cook. Without Soteria’s program, he doesn’t think he would have gotten the job and perhaps would be in prison or on his way back. 

Today he has his driver's license and a car. He also has a two-bedroom apartment—all because of an organization like Soteria working with a coalition to help people like Fred start a new life.