In Florida, where can I find grants to help newly released inmates get on their feet?

Question

There are so many men and women inmates that are being released from the prison system and have no where to go but back into the system.

Answer 1

They have a lot of places they can go than just back in, and I hardly think that our tax money should go to grants for inmates.  If they're coming back in, they'll come back in whether we throw money at em or not, its just easier to get back into drugs when you give em free money to get em started.  

The truth is, the ones that come clean will find a way, the habitual offenders will be back.  I know this from working in law enforcement, both on patrol and on detention.  

You can't readjust someone to life on the outside when they never knew how to live on the outside.

Answer 2

No, there are no federal grants for convicted felons.

You can go to the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) http://www.cfda.gov and Grants.gov http://www.grants.gov - these are two sites created by the federal government to provide transparency and information on grants. Browse through the listings and see if you can find any grant that would support a for-profit venture.

Even if you buy books on "how to get grants" or list that supposedly has information on grants -- all of them are mere rehash of what CFDA has, albeit packaged differently.

Most of the federal grants are given to specific target groups with specific requirements (e.g. minority business owners involved in transportation related contracts emanating from DOT - Grant#20.905 Disadvantaged Business Enterprises Short Term Lending Program

Grants are also often given to non profit groups or organizations involved in training or other similar activities (grant 59.043 Women's Business Ownership Assistance that are given to those who will create women's business center that will train women entrepreneurs

There is a non-profit organization called Prison Entrepreneurship Program which is described as "a Houston-based nonprofit organization that leverages the skills of senior business executives to constructively redirect these talents and equip inmates and former inmates with entrepreneurial training—enabling them to productively re-enter society."

http://prisonentrepreneurship.org/

Find similar organizations in Florida, if any

Answer 3

Convenience stores, junkyards, J-Jon operators, fast food joints, farms, all kinds of places are looking for people to perform work in exchange for money.  

Answer 4

WRONG. There are a lot of inmates being released in Missouri also and every woman that I supervise on Parole find a job withing 4-6 weeks if they really look. They don't get grants, sometimes they enroll in the career center or the old unemployment office or they go back to school but they don't just look for a hand out. They got themselves in this mess and the wise women know it's up to them to work their way from the bottom up. Some women I work with started out flipping burger and then went to school and now have good jobs. Get out daily and put in at least 10 applications.

Also  trying putting application in on line instead of playing on Answer Yahoo. Most all fast food resturants have applications on line now.