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A formerly incarcerated state lawmaker wants to give released state prisoners $2,500 each to stem the prison-to-shelter tide.
Assemblyman Edward Gibbs (D-Manhattan) has introduced legislation to require the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) to create a $25 million “gate money” fund to pay for the stipend.
Currently, people released from prison get $40, a MetroCard or other form of public transportation, and a non-driver identification card.
Gibbs, who did time for manslaughter when he was a teen, said the money, given in monthly installments, could help an estimated 11,000 prisoners expected to be released next year pay for basic human needs such as food and housing.
Helping former prisoners obtain some stability would also give them a better chance to find employment, supporters of the bill contend.
“Every year, thousands of individuals return to our communities, often with little more than the clothes on their backs,” said Gibbs. “The Reform to Gate Money bill… addresses this critical gap.”
The legislation comes as the city shelter system, which costs $135 per person per day, has been overwhelmed in part by the arrival of more than 157,600 asylum seekers since last spring.
For Gibbs, who represents East Harlem, the legislation is personal.
When he was 17, he fatally shot a man who he said was attempting to rob him. He served about four years in state prison on manslaughter charges before he was released on parole.
“It would have been amazing for me back then,” Gibbs told THE CITY. “Nineteen-ninety-one would have been a good year for me.”
The legislation, which is co-sponsored in the state Senate by Kevin Parker (D-Brooklyn), faces an uphill battle.
Gov. Kathy Hochul has vetoed multiple bills that add to the state’s immediate budget total. She has also nixed several measures pushed by criminal justice reformers, including a proposal to make it easier for people to challenge their wrongful convictions.
Still, Hochul’s executive budget includes $1.1 million to increase gate money from $40 to $200.
Supporters of the proposed legislation support that plan but say more money is needed — and they contend it will save the state in the long run.
It costs New York an estimated average of $315 a day, or nearly $115,000 annually, to incarcerate one person, according to an 2022 analysis by the Vera Institute.
“The cost for high impact re-entry services pales in comparison to what it costs to re-incarcerate someone,” said Sam Schaeffer, the leader of the Center for Employment Opportunities.
In April 2020, during the peak of the pandemic, the group distributed cash assistance totalling $4.34 million to 1,756 New Yorkers leaving prison. That money, coming to more than $2,400 per person, was distributed over several months.
An independent evaluation found that people who got that help were more likely to land a job.
“We saw how impactful it was for people who weren’t working,” he said. “We know from experience that the first few months of people coming home are the most challenging.”
More than 40% of people released from state prisons to New York City have gone directly into shelters each year since 2015, according to a report by Coalition for the Homeless.
That’s what happened to Kenneth Samuel when he was released in 2019 after serving nearly two decades.
“I was living with my sister, shelter, friend’s house, back to the shelter, to a room I rented,” he told THE CITY.
The $40 is “gone” by the time someone buys some food, he said, adding the proposed legislation would be “enough money for someone to search for a job for a few weeks.”
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