News release from city Communications Director Av Harris:
Mayor Joe Ganim, Senator Chris Murphy, State Senator Ed Gomes and Bridgeport City Council members Nessah Smith and Anthony Paoletto joined Career Resources Inc. and other area nonprofit organizations to cut the ribbon for the grand opening of The Jay Brothers Unified Resource Center (JBURC) designed to help the formerly incarcerated seek employment and return to society. This unique second chance community center is the first of its kind in the state. It will concentrate diverse services in one location for those Bridgeport residents returning from incarceration. Some services include: guided mediation, yoga, emotion management, mentoring for parent/child literacy, family reunification, and vocational services.
“Bridgeport is a second chance city and that is why we welcome this amazing center to our community to help anyone who may have made a mistake in their past put their careers and lives back together,” said Mayor Ganim. “As a second chance mayor I know personally how difficult it can be for returning citizens to get the training and services necessary to be a strong candidate for a job. The establishment of this center will help many residents of our city get what they need to get back into the workforce. We are truly grateful to all who worked so hard to make the dream Jay Brothers had to help those in need a reality. It will be a huge help not only to our second chance individuals but also for Bridgeport area employers who are looking for good people.”
JBURC is a partnership with the Bridgeport community agencies from the Bridgeport Reentry Collaborative that have come together to provide one-stop wrap around services for the anticipated returning citizens of the Bridgeport community. The facility, operated by Recovery Network of Programs (RNP), was designed to serve citizens with past convictions with hopes of ensuring a successful reentry.
The following services are available for program participants:
· Career resources
· Housing assistance
· Vocational training
· Educational and literacy services
· Transition to primary care services
· Recovery coaching services and peer mentoring
· Health and holistic wellness services
· Licensed behavioral health services including individual, group and family outpatient treatment; intensive outpatient treatment care; case management, crisis intervention, problem gambling treatment; psychiatric evaluations and medication monitoring.The center is named after Jay Brothers, a former addict and advocate for recovery. Brothers was raised in the New Haven area. At the young age of 17 he enlisted in the United States Army where he proudly served not just stateside, but overseas in Germany as well. It was some time after returning to the civilian world when he found himself in the midst of addiction and began his journey into the world of recovery. In 1988, Jay achieved his first year of sobriety which drove him to dedicate his life to helping others who were facing the same battle he had so recently won. He pursued a notable career as a substance abuse counselor saving others as he had been saved starting with the Children’s Center of Hamden and moving onto APT Foundation of Bridgeport, the Yale University Forensic Drug Diversion Clinic, the Connecticut VA Healthcare System, and finally the Center for Change of New Haven. Brothers unfortunately passed away in 2015 from a brain tumor, leaving behind his wife of 15 years, two daughters and one grandson.
The Jay Brothers Unified Resource Center is located on the East Side of Bridgeport and is accessible by car and directly on the Greater Bridgeport Transit #13 bus line. Parking is free with handicap accessibility. The center is open Monday thru Friday 9:00am to 8:00 p.m. For more information call: (203) 416-8901.
While I agree programs like this are necessary, they cannot and should not receive one tax dollar until our children’s first chance through education is fully funded.
Joseph Sokolovic, I cannot agree with you more on this point. Ganim has not made City schools an important part of his first year in any public way. Of course cutting school personnel as a necessary step in order to balance the initial 2017 budget decrease of about $15 Million does not provide many ‘photo opportunities.’
It is necessary for more folks to “follow the money” and look at where the funds are being spent. If that is hidden essentially and the CT Post is content talking to Ken Flatto in generalities rather than look behind the numbers and reasons for those numbers in the Police Department and elsewhere, then we remain in a place where the necessary school services and programs have deficient staffing.
Anyone who has followed City budgets and annual audits for a few years will remember the Personnel Chart showing Departments and staffing providing info on a single page that related to personnel info in each Department request. THAT WAS IGNORED THIS YEAR!!! What was the purpose? The Ganim administration has talked about decreased staffing and greater efficiencies, but what can John Gomes point to in terms of a baseline and metrics in this regard?
What we know is the schools are attempting to maintain their mission with fewer dollars, but the 29% mil rate increase even with lower property values (a fact many still do not understand) brought more dollars to the City side that are now in surplus, and the Mayor wants to use those for what? Take a look at projects around the City that were not necessarily part of the campaign and make inquiries. Are they long-contemplated Capital projects? Are they being properly bid and meeting all standards while ongoing? Are they last-minute projects that avoid due process? Do CC members know how taxpayer funds are being spent? Time will tell.
Not one penny of city money should be spent on this program. We should be spending more money for the children in the school system. BTW, where in the East Side is this place located?
If I am not mistaken the location described here is on Bond St. Why would you put this operation across from the new Harding high School? Dumb.
It is definitely a poor decision to open this facility across the street from Harding High School. Would this ever happen in Fairfield, Trumbull, Westport? No, it wouldn’t.
And there are Anthony Paoletto and Nessah Smith grinning from ear to ear as if this facility, which will be close to a high school that will house 1100 students, is just great.
No record of filings by this organization with the Secretary of the State’s office.
I was out on doors from 11:30 to 6:30pm and the apathy about voting in the November 8th election is troubling. I had two elderly voters who normally vote by AB tell me they did not want one because they are so disgusted with the presidential election.
It was pretty troubling.
As I speak with voters door to door, I spend time laying the foundation to ensure Paoletto and Smith are not reelected next year, and the long-term foundation to ensure Ganim is not reelected in 2019.
Chris Rosario, Anthony Paoletto and Nessah Smith attended a breakfast at Achievement First last week hosted by Northeast Charter Schools. They wanted to solicit support for their needs including transportation and $$$.
Anthony Paoletto and Nessah Smith voted to flat-fund the BOE leaving Thomas Hooker School, Multi-Cultural Magnet School, High Horizons Magnet School, Fairchild Wheeler School, Central Magnet School and Warren Harding School to lose bus transportation, paraprofessionals, Home School Coordinators, etc., but they attend a breakfast regarding the needs of the STATE charter schools in Bridgeport in which the City of Bridgeport nor the City Council have any obligation to.
Sooooooooo much to work with for next year’s election.