My journey started at the young age of 18, serving as a volunteer community youth counselor at a small community youth center, while attending college, studying Electrical/Electronic Engineering and Nuclear Physics, doing that time I was exposed to a lot of the social issues young people faced growing up in the sixties and seventies seeing the disparagement between whites and people of color in this country could not be further apart than they are today. Having seen young boys being killed or imprisoned due to having been mistreated and or killed by police, listening to outrageous stories of persons of color, seeing the division in equal rights, and equal treatment, which has been a problem for over 60 years in our country with many generations being put down, kept down, and feeling powerlessness one after another.

The core values and commitment to the population in which the First Line Strategies Unlimited, Inc. (Youth and Adult Development & Leadership Program) is the core mission of why we serve, because without structural support or intervention, these individuals face a wide range of obstacles making it virtually impossible for them to pursue legitimate means of survival. Economic obstacles are complicated by the profound physical and mental health problems that often haunt returning citizens, to the extent that mental health problems have manifested prior to incarceration, they more often than not remain untreated in prison. Eighty percent of the state prison population reports a history of drug or alcohol use. These individuals often face serious, sometimes life-threatening, health problems. Mental disorders are also prevalent among the inmate population. Rates of mental illness are, by some estimates, as high as four times the rate in the general population. Providing more accessible treatment for mental and physical illnesses could help stabilize these conditions and enable individuals to maintain housing and employment. Many of the returning citizens we see leaving prison are released with little preparation for employment and little or no treatment for continuing substance abuse problems, many young men and women (known as returning citizens) return to their communities only to find new and unexpected hurdles in their path to reintegration. Instead, little help is available.