How One Mother Found Stability Through Work and the CA HIRE Program

Growing up in Los Angeles, Dina faced her teenage years chasing distractions rather than diplomas. Those early choices led her into the criminal justice system and eventually incarceration. But when she returned home, ready to rebuild her life, Dina quickly encountered the harsh financial realities of reentry. She knew change was possible, but also that it wasn’t free.

“I was a teen mom when I went inside, and I didn’t know much about life, so it was very hard for me to get back on track because a lot of doors were now closed for me,” said Dina.

The consequences of a history with the legal system can spill over into people’s lives for years or even decades after their cases have been closed or they’ve completed their sentences. One study found that just a misdemeanor conviction can lead to a 16 percent loss of income yearly, and that a prison stint drops someone’s subsequent earnings by an average of 52 percent annually.

Dina says that living with this reality was a constant struggle.

“I couldn’t find a stable job or stable income,” said Dina.

“I had to turn to waitressing, making cash under the table instead of a real paycheck, which was never enough and always put me behind on rent, on bills, on everything.”

Frustrated with the low, unreliable pay and late hours that too often kept her away from her family, Dina turned to Homeboy Industries, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit helping justice-involved individuals like herself turn their lives around. They connected her to A New Way of Life (ANWOL), where she received job training and landed a full-time position as a case manager at a local workforce center.

“They helped me get a fresh start,” said Dina.

While securing full-time work marked a major step forward, a job alone isn’t always enough to stabilize a household, especially after incarceration. Through ANWOL’s partnership with the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO), she also received $3,250 in direct cash assistance through the CA HIRE program, a grant from the California Workforce Development Board awarded to CEO to provide needs-based payments through reentry partner organizations like ANWOL. These flexible funds were a lifeline, helping Dina to pay for essentials and, most importantly, to keep a roof over her and her four children’s heads.

“I caught up on my car payments, bought groceries and things we needed at home, and I was able to save the apartment that we live in today after falling behind on the rent for months,” said Dina.

The Prison Policy Initiative reports that formerly incarcerated people are nearly 10 times more likely to experience homelessness than the general public and that people who have been to prison just once experience homelessness at a rate nearly 7 times higher than the general public.

For Dina, the money from the HIRE grant, coupled with her new job, kept her and her family off the street and provided the stability to attend the classes needed to qualify for a new and better-paying career as a notary public. It also returned a sense of calm to her home life that she hadn’t felt in a long time.

“Before the money, life was all stress because I was always short on rent, and I knew that if I got evicted, my kids would be evicted, and my kids could sense that,” said Dina.

“But now they see me going to class, and working, and the bills are paid, and they aren’t worried anymore.”

Dina’s sights are now set on the future, and she plans to eventually afford to move her family into a house of their own.

“My next chapter is to have a stable home,” said Dina.

“And this grant helped set me in that direction.”

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