ROANOKE, Va. – Finding footing after incarceration is challenging, but a new resource in Roanoke aims to help.
The Unified Reintegration Community Resource Center opened near the Roanoke City Adult Detention Center, offering justice-involved individuals tools and support to move forward.
“90 percent of people who come into our custody, they do what, return back to society so we gotta give them a pathway to home,” said Roanoke City Sheriff Antonio Hash.
The center serves as a one-stop hub for people reentering society. It provides job readiness services, mental health support, and culinary training.
“Job readiness services, we have people for jobs, mental health, we got culinary that will be here as well, job trailing,” Sheriff Hash said.
The sheriff’s office partnered with the city of Roanoke, TAP, and other local organizations to create the center. It also acts as a satellite site for service providers.
“We can help them, we can get them in services and help lessen, because we all know there’s chances but lessen the effects of them going back out and using drugs,” said Rachel Gravely, marketing outreach at Tandem Behavioral Health Care.
Plans are underway for a new partnership to offer hands-on training that can lead directly to employment.
“This space over here next door is going to be that hub for Firehouse to keep training them and to push them into their stores all over this community,” Sheriff Hash said.
“We aren’t doing it because we are trying to get them to just cook but we are trying to teach a service so when they get out they can go to work,” he added. “Line workers, management, we need people for all over to send them back to work if they want to work.”
The goal is to support people before they fall through the cracks and help them build a stable future.
The center is open Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.