Launched: Yale Recovery Finance Project, Multi-Year Reentry Program

NEW HAVEN, CT – Coinciding with National Second Chance Month, New Haven kicks-off the Recovery Finance Project. The multi-year initiative will provide one-on-one financial coaching, peer support, and other interventions for individuals returning from incarceration with mental health or substance use challenges in the Greater New Haven region. The goal is to help advance their financial well-being and support their successful re-entry into society.

Led by the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health, community partners include the City of New Haven, Winning Ways, and the CT Association for Human Services, among others.
It is funded by a $1.6 million federal grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health.

As noted by the Yale School of Medicine's program, "those who are incarcerated often face enormous financial challenges when they leave prison, such as unemployment, debt, damaged credit, and exclusion from financial services. And people with a mental health stigma or substance use challenge are even more likely to have these financial problems, which create barriers to successful re-entry."

In addition to providing financial coaching and/or peer support in accessing financial tools and services to nearly 240 individuals, the Recovery Finance Project and accompanying community-based research study will also advance system level change.

That would be accomplished by "advocating for policy changes and by providing training for service providers working with this population as well as for banks and credit unions to increase knowledge of this population’s needs," a news release from Mayor Justin Elicker's office reads.