Hundreds of people committed to helping former offenders successfully return to their communities were energized and ready to get back to work after a recent event, when one state official paused to point out how far California has come in the past few years.

“This is a mammoth shift,” Linda Penner proclaimed about how California’s governmental agencies are working with community-based organizations (CBOs) to ensure successful reentry from incarceration to the community.

As chair of the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC), Penner made the comments during the two-day “Reentry Solutions: People, Programs and Policy” conference held last week in Ontario. The conference convened representatives from governmental agencies, community-based organizations and advocates to discuss how to achieve successful reentry for not only the formerly incarcerated, but those whose lives are impacted by incarceration.

A successful reentry was embodied by panelist Troy Vaughn, a former homeless veteran and inmate, who has worked for more than two decades to create opportunities and system-wide change for the formerly incarcerated.

Now the executive director of the Los Angeles Regional Reentry Partnership, Vaughn shared his CBO’s point of view: “We have to challenge ourselves as a community and not expect the government to do everything for us. People are coming home to our communities. They come home to our churches. They come home to our families. They come home to our community-based organizations. They’re coming home and we need to be able to create a welcoming environment for them.”

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