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Former Gov. Jim McGreevey addresses a new class of ex-offenders taking part in the New Jersey Reentry Program. (Aristide Economopoulus | NJ Advance Media)
By Mark Di Ionno | NJ Advance Media
Jim McGreevey’s voice reverberated around a classroom filled with 50 ex-offenders.
He was in full preacher/activist mode, citing scripture, quoting Martin Luther King, and reciting 12-step recovery mantra.
The audience was mostly men, hardened by the streets and prison. Some nodded in agreement as McGreevey played clips of King’s prescient last speech in Memphis, the day before he was shot.
“Like anybody, I would like to live a long life,” King was saying. “But I am not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will.”
McGreevey seized those words.
“Isn’t this what the third step (of 12-step) is all about? Turning your life over to the care of God?” he asked the room. Some affirmed, others were passive. It was a tough crowd, but McGreevey was just getting warmed up.
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Devin O’Loughlin talks about how the program is helping him and how he wants to get advance training. (Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media)
The speech rolled on with King saying he’d “been to the mountain top” and “seen the promised land.
“I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man.”
“What Dr. King is saying is that God has his back,” McGreevey said, shouting now. “That if he’s doing God’s will, God has his back.”
This spiritual revival had a sharp point to it. McGreevey told the ex-offenders God had better plans for them than “living in a cage.” They just had to believe it and follow the plan.
“We want you to fulfill your promise,” McGreevey said. “We’re going to walk with you on this journey.”
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Former Gov. Jim McGreevey has teamed with Newark Mayor Ras Baraka to give 50 former inmates 6-month jobs city Department of Public Works to get them back on their feet. (Aristide Economopoulusn|NJ Advance Media)
For the 50 people in the room, the first step was that very moment.
It was an orientation day in the Newark branch of the state-funded New Jersey’s Reentry Corporation (NJRC) back-to-work program, which has become the latest installment of the former governor’s life work.
It is both McGreevey’s political connections and tenacity that bring in close to $4 million a year in government funding for the program.
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Dominique Lemons, right, talks to Basiyr Powell as she fills out a form to attend Essex County Community College as part of the New Jersey Reentry Program. (Arisitide Economopoulus|NJ Advance Media)
Fourteen hundred men and women have moved through the program but this class, for the first time, was guaranteed six-month employment in Newark’s Department of Public Works, while being trained in building trades or attaining other employment skills.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka has been offering ex-offenders jobs in the city DPW since he took office 2014, the same year McGreevey launched his job training pilot program for freed inmates in Hudson County.
The new arrangement between NJRC and Newark, supplies the missing piece for both programs.
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Former Gov. Jim McGreevey is the chair of the New Jersey Reentry Program talks to participants at their Newark office. (Arisitide Economopoulus|NJ Advance Media)
“We put these guys on our trucks and had them working but we couldn’t put the necessary support services in one place,” Mayor Ras Baraka said. “McGreevey’s people have the recovery program, job training, and the other support they need under one roof. So now they can have a job, and get a little money in their pocket, as they get training for other jobs.”
In McGreevey’s reentry program, people are given access to drug treatment or other mental health counseling, they get driver’s licenses restored, and access to food and housing.
“We help them clean up warrants, or issues with child support,” McGreevey said. “(Essex County Executive) Joe DiVincenzo has opened the doors to the county welfare and health services. its doors to their services.
