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Amplified Voices
Amplified Voices is a podcast that lifts the voices of people and families impacted by the criminal legal system. Hosts Jason and Amber speak with real people in real communities to help them step into the power of their lived experience. Together, they explore shared humanity and real solutions for positive change.
Amplified Voices
Kevin: Money + Kindness Makes All the Difference - Season 5 Episode 9
What happens when we replace shame and barriers for people in reentry with resources? Kevin Scott of Community Spring shares his story and work with direct cash assistance for justice-impacted people as part of this insightful conversation with Amplified Voices co-hosts, Jason and Amber.
Kevin's story begins in the chaos of childhood trauma – a family member struggling with addiction, a kidnapping, and his own early descent into substance use. Despite multiple attempts at recovery, Kevin eventually found himself serving a four-year prison sentence in Florida's Department of Corrections, where the heat was unbearable and hope seemed impossible.
Yet even amongst the harsh and dehumanizing prison environment, Kevin discovered unexpected paths to healing. He became responsible for the prison band room, tapping into his passion for music. More profoundly, he discovered meditation, which forced him to confront his lifelong pattern of seeking escape and "oblivion" rather than facing reality. This practice became the foundation for his lasting recovery and transformed his understanding of himself.
Upon release, Kevin faced the brutal realities of reentry – sleeping in a homeless shelter parking lot, struggling with probation fees, and battling the constant threat of reincarceration for inability to pay. The system that claimed to rehabilitate had no interest in his actual success.
Despite these barriers, Kevin found stability and eventually connected with Community Spring, where he and others helped create Just Income – a groundbreaking program providing $800 monthly to formerly incarcerated people with no strings attached.
The results have been extraordinary: a 31% reduction in recidivism, nearly halving money-related probation violations, and significantly improved mental health and employment outcomes. As Director of Guaranteed Income, Kevin has overseen the distribution of over $1 million to 157 recipients, proving that "money and kindness" outperform surveillance and control.
Beyond the numbers lies a profound truth captured by one participant: "Hope goes a long way for people who are accustomed to hopelessness." Kevin's work demonstrates that viewing formerly incarcerated people through a lens of humanity rather than criminality creates better outcomes for individuals and communities alike.
Featured in an award-winning documentary and major news outlets, Community Spring is not only transforming lives in Gainesville—it’s becoming a replicable model for communities across the country.
More About Kevin Scott:
A formerly incarcerated advocate, Kevin Scott has been instrumental in advancing policies that remove economic barriers for justice-impacted people. His work has helped end unpaid prison labor contracts, pass Florida’s first Fair Chance Hiring ordinance, eliminate fines and fees, and secure free phone calls for incarcerated individuals and their families.
Kevin’s efforts as Director of Guaranteed Income at Community Spring have received national recognition for their bold, evidence-based approach to reentry and economic justice.
Outside of work, Kevin is a devoted Zen meditation practitioner, a soccer fan, and the proud father of one brilliant daughter and two idiot cats.
Everyone has a voice, a story to tell. Some are marginalized and muted. What if there were a way to amplify those stories, to have conversations with real people in real communities, a way to help them step into the power of their lived experience? Welcome to Amplified Voices, a podcast lifting the experiences of people and families impacted by the criminal legal system. Together, we can create positive change for everyone.
Jason:Hello, welcome to another episode of Amplified Voices. I'm your host, Jason, here with my co-host, Amber. Good morning, Amber.
Amber:Good morning Jason.
Jason:Amber. Today we have with us Kevin Scott. Hello, kevin.
Kevin:Hello, good morning. Thanks for having me on.
Jason:It's great to have you on, Kevin. Tell us a little bit about your life before the criminal legal system and what brought you into it.
Kevin:Okay, holy shit, here we go. I cuss a lot, by the way, I should probably be-.
Amber:That's okay, we're raw here on Amplified Voices.
Kevin:Okay, thanks, fucking God. Okay, here we go. I'm in Florida. I live in Gainesville, florida.
Jason:Where is that relative to Orlando or Miami? We are North.
Kevin:Central Florida, north of Orlando, right in the middle of the state. They call it the swamp. The University of Florida is here. Gainesville, it's Alachua County. Gainesville, Florida, Did you grow?
Jason:up there.
Kevin:No, I was born in DC, but my family moved to Florida when I was like too young to remember. Basically, Gainesville is definitely where I consider to be my home.
Amber:So I do have to say I will forgive you because we are an FSU family.
Kevin:Well, prepare for some good news then. Next week, my daughter and I will be going to FSU for orientation, because she is about to start FSU.
Amber:Okay, all right, we're friends again.
Kevin:So I grew up in Florida. Definitely a challenging childhood Addiction is a huge part of my story, a huge part of my family's story as well. My mom, especially when I was little, story as well. My mom, especially when I was little, was an active addiction and my older brother, who's three years older than I, definitely had a lot of trauma based on my mom's addiction. So ended up meeting with every kind of abuse there was physical, mental, emotional, sexual, psychological. I mean this is pretty standard for someone who's experiencing addiction. It was pretty bad for a while there. So my mom was in that cycle at the time. My dad was relatively more stable, had a job, there was drinking and things around, but he was definitely at least functional.
Jason:Were they together or were you in separate homes?
Kevin:Separate homes. I don't have any memory of them ever being together. I think shortly after we moved to Florida they ended up splitting up, which was a catalyst for my mom's addictions kicking into gear there.
Jason:So you're going from stability to instability to stability to instability.
Kevin:Yeah, and it was pretty bad, yeah. So at some point my mom's addiction had gotten so bad that she was denied parental rights. They were like you're not sound, you're not safe to be around your my brother and I, and she basically just ambushed us as we were coming home from a grocery store and kidnapped me and my brother. She fled. We went to Miami for a while, we went to Puerto Rico, we went to Jamaica. It's like a fucking movie. It was crazy. How old were you? I must've been like four or something. I mean, I was little, like a little guy. The event was sudden. It was violent, it was very bloody, it was loud, it was terrifying. Yeah, it was intense. She was being abused by her boyfriend, so we witnessed all these terrible things and she had consequences from her choices there as well, Ended up really getting it together later in life. We were very close before her final years. We were very close before her final years. We were like extremely close actually, and I have been less close with my dad's side of the family. Oddly enough, I kind of related more with my mom. We were closer than I was with my dad.
Kevin:Probably most kids who grew up in environments like that there's some element of oh my God, I will never do any of these things. Of course, look what I have witnessed. How could anyone possibly you know what I mean Like I'll never use these drugs? And then, of course, as special as I would like to consider myself to be, I am pretty textbook in the sense that by the time I got into like middle school, I already started to experiment with substances, and it didn't take long before whatever is inside of me that is predisposed eager for substances it was like oh my God, like this is fantastic. And so I had consequences from using. By the time I was in 10th grade, I got sent to this juvie rehab place. It didn't take long for things to get sideways and you said you had a sibling was.
Jason:Is that a brother or sister?
Kevin:Yeah, so I have an older brother who's three years older than me. I had a younger brother, but he passed away when he was 14. Yeah, when I was 23, he was 14. He passed away. My older brother seemed to have dodged all of the bullets of addiction and all of the compounding cascading joys that come from active addiction. I got blessed.
Amber:So, kevin, first of all, thank you for sharing all of that. I think one of the things that we see when we chat with people is the way that the stories unfold feels very nonchalant. It's like, oh well, you know I was kidnapped and this thing happened. So I just want to acknowledge that was a lot of things Right and a lot of trauma that you just described. So I want to acknowledge it and say that I'm sorry that that's something that you experienced.
Amber:And then one thing that just struck me when you just spoke about your brother is that he dodged the bullet and your reaction was different. I think this is something really important for people to hear, right, because people say something bad happened to me and I didn't do X, y, z, whatever, I didn't get caught up in the system, I didn't react in that way, and it really shows the raw humanity of what we can look at like what are interventions. And so my question to you is along the way, when you were in school or you were interacting with other sorts of people in community, were there any opportunities for intervention? Did people notice what was happening?
Kevin:for intervention. Did people notice what was happening? Yeah, in ninth and 10th grade, especially for me, is when it started to become a little more apparent that I was using or something was going on. It was like March of my 10th grade year the school contacted my parents separately and was like your son has missed more days than he's been to school this year. And they were like what the fuck? They did not know. I would leave the house in the morning and I was just going and partying and doing whatever.
Kevin:It became obvious that something was going on with me and shortly thereafter I ended up in like that juvie rehab place and that was kind of my first exposure in terms of interventions. It wasn't 12 steps. They had somehow compressed it to seven to make it more digestible for our teen minds or something like that, but it was seven steps I was in there for on some level for a year and a half and it was full time, inpatient, and then by degrees over time it's like, okay, you will go spend the night at your house and then eventually you can now go back to high school. You sort of regained freedoms in the world and that was really my first exposure to recovery-based stuff and I was mandated as part of that to go to like X number of AA meetings or NA meetings.
Kevin:This was in Sarasota and I was 15 years old and go into an AA meeting in Sarasota, florida, where everyone was decades older than me and it was like I lost my wife, I lost my car, I lost my house and I was like I don't relate to any of that, I'm just a kid, you know what I mean. And so I felt like a little like I didn't belong there or something. But also there was some part of me that was like oh, I very much do belong here. There's something familiar in what these people are sharing about how they interact with substances, about what it does to them mentally kind of why they have chosen to do substances. And you know I can see myself in a lot of those stories. That was the main intervention for decades after in and out of recovery spaces until eventually, ironically, it was like oh man, I lost my car, I lost my wife, lost my house, like I ended up being exactly like what those people were talking about when I was a teen, you know.
Amber:Yeah, thank you for sharing. I think that for me, when I am thinking about that, it Tells us that when we talk about interventions, right, it has to be Culturally appropriate, it has to be age appropriate, all of those things. So thank you so much for sharing that.
Jason:Right and Amber, I'm also thinking about the fact that I mean what your whole family was experiencing and then eventually you know just the trauma that your family went through, and I'm just thinking of your older brother right now also lost a younger brother who saw all the same stuff and then had to see what you were going through. I wonder what his experience was like. You know, through all of that Must have been tough.
Kevin:Yeah, during that period when I was in the, it was called the life program, which stood for life is for everyone. In hindsight it was really traumatic, honestly. It was like support groups for people who went through it. It was like really intense. It was not cool but yeah, at the time for sure I think you're right, jason Like I felt a lot of shame and like, oh my God, I am like absolutely the black sheep of this family.
Kevin:My mom at that point had gotten clean, so she was in a better space.
Kevin:My younger brother at the time was like five or six, uh, and my older brother, just you know, again like did not have any of the same reactions or experiences of addiction. So, just you know, sort of like eye rolling, like, oh my god, like my this brother, this younger brother of mine, is a mess. So I felt like profoundly like a burden, like shame, guilt, like an outcast in my family, really, that the person I identified most within my family was my mom. I think, just based on our sort of shared experience and we had like similar dispositions and like interests, like I I don't know what I look like. I I feel like I look like some, like retired soccer hooligan or something but like I imagine like a super, like soft, sweet guy, like I'm like I cry all the time and I'm like a really sensitive guy and my mom was like kind of the same way, like she had like a really just like kind heart, so we had like a lot of resonance with each other. So outside of her, for the rest of my family I didn't really like get along great with anybody. I always felt like I was a little like less than or outcast, and that carried through into my adult life, like we just had no relationship outside of my mom and that was pretty much it.
Jason:So you go through your teen years and then your early adult years and you're trying to get it. It sounds like you went through periods of trying to control this addiction and then having it control you, and you also alluded to the fact that at some point you got married and you were doing okay, like what's happening.
Kevin:Yeah, I've been married a few times. Man, okay, yeah, yes, indeed, yeah. So after high school I was pretty good at playing music also. So I was. I got really into the music scene. So I was in like punk bands and hardcore bands and like that was like a huge part of my life. That was why I moved to Gainesville. Gainesville had a huge music scene at the time. I had, you know, friends. I was able to plug in and ended up doing like touring, playing drums or working for other bands, so that was a huge part of my life.
Kevin:And then also, like you know, I really wanted to stabilize and so I would kind of go in and out of like these periods of sobriety, not using and then I'd like relapse. It was very textbook, you know, like in and out, in and out. In my heart of hearts. I always wanted to be clean. I always felt like I was meant to be clean. The people that I revered most were oftentimes they were musicians, but there was people that were in straight edge hardcore bands, people that were talking about the value of a clear mind and having a purposeful life and I always felt like so, like, yeah, like that that sounds right to me and just like vexed with myself because I couldn't get there and, like you know, sort of like this compound and like, oh fuck, I can't do it, I can't do it, these guys are doing it, this lady's doing it, why can't I do it? Like that's who I wanted to be. And so, yeah, I went in and out of these like periods of stability.
Kevin:I, yeah, I got married a couple of times and then, honestly, the thing that really kept coming back up was my addiction. There were times where, like you know, I was married, I had a daughter and I ended up relapsing, like a couple of years after she was born and things just like. Really, I had like a surgery on my back and I had been clean at the time and they were like, well, here's, you're going to need some like pain management medication, and I had done everything other than pills at that point, so that was not really on my radar, but then, like, almost like immediately reignited my addiction and all these cascading things happen which ended up leading to the end of my marriage. At the time I, you know, relapsing, ended up like having legal consequences and, like all these things, ended up going to prison. So, yeah, I had these like attempts at stability and I just could not make it stick, you know.
Jason:I just want to pause there for a second. I want to underline and underscore you were in a period of high stress. For anybody when you're, you have a young family, right. I mean that's very, very stressful to begin with. There were a lot of forces working against you at that point that you need to kind of be forgiving to a little bit.
Kevin:Yeah, I mean it was kind of the perfect storm for somebody that has, like, a propensity for addiction. It was like, oh, what a great setup, you know. It was like there was high stress, here's drugs here's. You know, it's like somebody like readily handing out drugs and that just like really kicked in all the pre-existing stuff and, like you know, typically when somebody relapses it tends to be worse than the last time they use, and that has definitely been true in my history as well. Like every time it was like a little worse than the last time and it was like God, it happened so fast too. I've been clean for over 12 and a half years now, I should say, so this has been yeah, so this is like quite a ways in the rear view, at least from that time.
Kevin:But yeah, it didn't take long. I ended up. You know I was like stealing stuff and just putting myself in like awful and you know like addiction shows up in many, many ways, so it didn't take long for the consequences to arrive.
Amber:So tell us a little bit about, like, what you mean by consequences. Unpack that a little bit.
Kevin:Yeah, yeah. So, like, as my addiction, you know, had sort of post-surgery, the drugs were reintroduced it, behaviorally, things started getting even more sideways and I think, like I knew I needed help, I was too ashamed to acknowledge that I needed help. It was really hard for me to say it out loud At that time. I had a child. I didn't have a ton of support. I had moved back to Sarasota at the time. That's where my wife and we were living there.
Kevin:During this period I felt pretty isolated. I just didn't know what to do with it. I didn't know how to ask for help or acknowledge, like what was happening, to say it out loud to anybody else. And so I think one of my friends said it really well. He's like, more than like drugs, I think I'm like addicted to self-destruction, like that's. I am addicted to oblivion, like that's what I'm seeking on some level. And so I ended up yeah, I was like stealing stuff and putting myself in all these like crazy situations and I ended up getting incarcerated. I'd never been arrested before in my entire life. Somehow, I had like never had that, never like, never been in handcuffs, never been in jail, and it was a jarring experience, obviously.
Jason:Can I add something where you said addicted to oblivion, really addicted to that? It sounds to me that you were in extreme distress. You didn't know how to physically ask for help, but you wanted out and the only way to do that was to completely blow up your life. It's somehow in your brain blowing up your life is going to get you help.
Kevin:Yeah, that's it. It was like, as opposed to finding like a softer, more reasonable way to get help, I'm just going to eat a fucking grenade.
Jason:Yeah, that's exactly right.
Kevin:It was like on some somewhere in my brain. It was like I just need for every, I just need the apocalypse, as opposed to you know some sort of reasonable help. Yeah, so that I ended up. I ended up getting arrested. I was out for like two years waiting for things to be resolved. I thought it was going to maybe go away and then eventually I ended up getting sent to prison and I was in there for I was sentenced for four years. And then there's the whole story of what happened inside. But, yeah, I ended up going to the Florida.
Amber:Department of Corrections with a four-year sentence. Tell us a little bit about the sounds, feels, all of those things of what happened when, so people can sort of understand what is the experience of finding yourself in the world one moment and then getting sentenced and then finding yourself behind the walls.
Kevin:Yeah yeah, I did not think I was going to go to prison. I really thought I was going to leave the courtroom. I felt quite confident I was going to and it turned out like absolutely not. They were like guilty, led away. At that moment, the judge let me hug my family, which was, I think, unusual, and that was it. I mean, like you're immediately bodily taken away in that moment, um, unbeknownst to me, I wasn't going to come out of there for you know, years to come. At that point, but, uh yeah, led away.
Kevin:I was in the county jail for, I think, about three months, something like that sort of waiting for the sentencing and the transport before I was sent to Florida prison. They put you in a van with a bunch of other guys. You're shackled up together and I ended up going to Orlando. There's a central receiving facility. It's like a processing, it's like a slaughterhouse. Basically it's like a processing for prisons. So I went there.
Kevin:It was freezing cold. I got there it was February and I think by the time we arrived to the place in Orlando it was like probably four or five in the morning, but you know, you're kind of up all night, traumatized. They stripped us naked. It was freezing cold out there. Florida does get cold, by the way. We're like, we're naked, just naked. It was freezing cold out there. Florida does get cold, by the way. We're like, we're naked. You know like, spread them cough. You know, humiliating all the things. They shave your head. It puts you in a shower. That's six zillion degrees and you know they give you clothes and it's really dehumanizing thing and it's done in. You had better maintain silence or somebody is going to come stomp you. You know what I mean. It's like it's super violent right off the bat. They're setting the tone.
Kevin:I went through that and actually I was. They handed out food trays and you know, at the county jail I had been starving and when I opened up the tray I thought it was a trick because it seemed to me like there was so much food on the tray. There wasn't, but that's not just to speak to how scant the portions were in the county jail. I actually was like wow, what an abundance of food on this prison tray, because I was so damn hungry. So yeah, I was there in Orlando. I would say like maybe like a month, and then they sort of determine where you're going to go, like what your permanent prison is going to be. One morning they say, scott, pack your shit. You're put on a bus with a bunch of other guys and they make stops at different prisons and they basically pull out a list like you, you, you, you, you get off at this one and you go to another prison, you, you, you, and so that's how it went.
Kevin:I ended up going to a prison that's in central Florida, south of here, but in the middle of the state, in the Hardy County area. Basically, the rest of my incarceration was there. It was not at all what I thought it was going to be like. It's not like the movies, it's not like what you would see on TV. It was quite the experience.
Kevin:I ended up meeting some of the most amazing people I've ever met in my entire life. Some of the most like creative, intelligent, warm, compassionate uh, just like I mean amazingly talented people that it's a disservice for these folks to be kept in the cage. Some of like the greatest people I've ever met were there, um, because I was a musician. Actually, the first night I got there there was like this, like sort of um, one wing of this one dorm where, like, all of the new people came through it's like the orientation wing and I just the way that my cell was um, there's no air conditioning in florida prison, by the way, which you can imagine. It gets super, super hot at times, but there's just like basically open windows and I I was like, do I hear music?
Kevin:Like I thought I heard like live instruments, like somewhere like in the distance, and I asked somebody and they're like, oh yeah, like on the rec yard, there's like a band room out there and I was like oh my god, like oh my god, how do I get there? Like how can I get there? And so, like the first chance I got to go onto the rec yard, I went up to the, the officer who ran it, and I was like I've been in bands, like I would. If there's any way for me to plug in here, I think, holy shit, like this would be amazing. Uh, he was actually the guy who has been doing it is about to leave. He's like I'll make you the new guy. So, like that's what I did for quite a while. My job on the at the prison was I was a rec orderly, so I worked on the rec yard, but I ran the band room and Amber.
Jason:This is the first time we had somebody who was a musician on the inside.
Kevin:Yeah, yeah, this is great.
Amber:So, just so you know, you're talking to several musicians as well, so we're really excited to hear about this.
Jason:When the two of you were talking sports, I checked out, but when we get into the music stuff, you wake me up. But no, that's before we get into some of the good stuff, which is what is exciting. You've described being in there because of the drugs and which led to behaviors that got you incarcerated. Now, all of a sudden, you find yourself in the prison situation, and let's see, how do I say this?
Amber:so there were no drugs in prison, right, that was never.
Kevin:Everybody laughs very loudly, all my god my god, there's so many, so many drugs and you're locked in with them. There's no, there's no getting away from them. Yeah, you're literally locked in with all the drugs.
Amber:And obviously it was definitely the family members that brought them in Is that right? Is that right I mean that's what the media told me. Certainly yeah, that is definitely the it wasn't the corrections officers exploiting people with addiction.
Jason:So how did you handle that?
Kevin:Yeah, for people who relapse a lot they're. You know it's not always linear. Recovery is not always linear. It's not always like you get clean one time and you got it. I went in and out as many times as I needed to go in and out and I guess at that last time I was just done and so I just made this commitment. I'm going to do whatever I can to stay clean and I don't think it's because I'm like an extraordinary human being. It was just I was done at that time and some people it's their first time, some people it's their thousandth time. So I never give up on anybody who's dealing with addiction. Going in and out, to your point.
Kevin:Yeah, the staff definitely smuggling in substances. You know drugs, alcohol, tobacco, pornography, all kinds of stuff. I mean the staff is who's bringing that stuff in? So yeah for sure Saw a guard come in, deliver drugs to a prisoner and they've received their payment and then come back later and bust that same prisoner for the drugs that they brought in and then reclaim the drugs and go go sell them to somebody else. I mean it's a sinister thing. They're keeping people sick A hundred percent. It is not a healing environment, despite whatever they might publicly proclaim. That is the opposite of what was actually happening in there. For sure, for sure.
Amber:So, kevin, I have to say that what you just said is what most people that I know who have had a journey with addiction say. One day I was just tired, I just decided it had to be me, like it had to come from me. And you're exactly right. It's the millionth time, it's the second time, it's whenever the person comes to the point where they're like this is not what I want my life to be. Having said that, that takes a lot Right. So a person who can't do that, that time I love that you said I never give up on someone because, there will be a time where someone can get to that point nobody
Kevin:should ever be left without help, so thank you for sharing that, yeah, I mean things just don't fit into a neat little package all the time. I mean, you know, like my mom, like people would have given up on her many times. I mean she fucking kidnapped her own children, you know what I mean. Like there's a strong case for like, oh my God, what a horrible human being this is and that was just simply not true. Like it just took her a few times and she got clean and she was amazing by the time she died. She was like world's sweetest. I'm on like there was no trace of like people would be in disbelief to hear that sweet linda ever did anything other than be sweet linda the grandma. You know what I mean. So I, yeah, I'd never give up on on anybody.
Kevin:And there there was, like you know, in prison, because where I was there weren't resources, there really weren't like supports. There was was like AA meetings, I think every now and again came in, but the system itself wasn't providing anything like meaningful in terms of like addiction supports or mental health support. I had always been sort of interested, I sort of like felt inspired by and called to be a person of like purpose and I always felt like drawn to people who did like meditation and had sort of like this like clear mind, and on the chapel list where I was, I saw this thing that said Buddhist meditation and I was like oh wow, interesting, like amazing that they have that here too. Like not only is there music but there's meditation. I should say all of these things were supported by people on the outside. None of these things were created by the prison itself. So if I'm saying there were good things there, it's only because people on the outside took it upon themselves to provide these things.
Kevin:But anyway, I ended up going to this Buddhist meditation event at the chapel and, unbeknownst to me, it was sort of like a longer event. Usually it was like an hour a week. This was going to be like multiple hours and their sponsor from the outside was coming in to be present, and so I got in there and there was a few people like civilians. I was like, oh wow, people not wearing uniforms Amazing. They rang the bell. There was like a little chanting and things. They rang the bell and like meditation started and within shit, it felt like a minute.
Kevin:I was like, oh my god, get me the fuck out of here. Like it was. So silence peaked around and everyone was just like sitting looking, uh, it was appearing to be like relatively still and silent. And I was like, oh my god, like this is like this is too much for me, I can't do this. And I was like I I gotta get out of here. And I was like, okay, like I think I'm just gonna get up and like walk out. And I was like, wait, I'm in prison. Can I just walk out of this room? Am I allowed to do that? Like are they gonna tackle me? Like what's gonna happen? And I was like, okay, well, I gotta get out of this room.
Kevin:And then I had this moment of realizing like, okay, let's say I get up and I go to this door and I open it and I get to the other side of this door. I was like, oh, I'm going to be on the other side of the thing I'm trying to get away from is going to be on the other side of that door also. And I was like, oh my God, like where can I go that I am not? I sort of caught that thought and I realized like, oh, kevin, like that is your whole life, where can I go that I am not? And that was like this real profound moment for me of like all I have been trying to do is oblivion, apocalypse, escape, be anywhere that this is not like, be anywhere that reality is not happening. And so I some reason, in that little reprieve of like stillness and silence, I caught the thought, I saw it and I was like, oh my god, like, if not now, when you?
Jason:also had told us before we started recording that were some things that happened in prison that influenced your life Now and what you're doing now. Is there anything that you want to share with us about that?
Kevin:Yeah, for sure. I mean, like the people that I met along the way, like some of the guys that I ended up meditating with, and part of the reason I came home early is because one of the guys I became friends with through meditation was a law clerk and he was like how are you here? And he like looked through my stuff and he ended up filing these things on my behalf. I got released a year early and he actually got me 10 more months with my mom because she died later the year that I came home. I would have missed these final 10 months of my mom's life. The people I met were so remarkable. I ended up meditating regularly. I ended up in this deep, formal study with this Zen priest on the outside. I was lucky. I was lucky I had like good support and I was able to like change my perspective on myself.
Jason:I just have to comment that Amber is beaming. She loves the meditation stuff. She leads circles and meditations.
Amber:No, I was grinning very big because I'm a sound journey practitioner, I teach meditation, I teach mindful meditative art, and so I was like oh, what Meditation saved your life, duh.
Kevin:A hundred percent. And I should say, like you know, like I sort of the anecdote, like I hated it at first.
Amber:Right. Many people do.
Kevin:So I've been doing still, even years later. We have a weekly meditation here that we offer for people who've been in prison here in our community. It's a huge part of my life. It ended up becoming like a central to my entire existence.
Jason:So you get out of prison early, you get to spend time with your mother. That's amazing and so fortunate. I mean just to comment the fact that you were in prison at all when what you needed was healing. You could have had those precious moments even before that, but it's great that you had some moments with her towards the end. And then so I guess life is not forever. And then so you have to appreciate what you have when you have it. So now you're out and you're doing some phenomenal things, right?
Amber:I'm really excited to hear about the work that you're doing now, but I want to just quickly, because when we talk about the harm of the system, a lot of times people say, oh, but the person did this, that or the other. So I just want to, as we're talking about this story, I know the times that you spend in meditation, the times that you were in reflection about your life and how you were trying to get away. During that self-reflection process, were there thoughts in your mind about any harm that you had caused? How did that affect you? Let's talk a little bit about the accountability that comes with self-realization, self-reflection that, to be clear, the prison didn't give you the people that came in and you found it within yourself. So let's talk about that.
Kevin:Yeah, for sure. I mean, as you know, in meditation you think about everything you know, like, as much as you might be like I will have no thoughts in meditation. You have fucking good luck with that.
Amber:Yeah, no, that's not how the human brain works.
Kevin:Let me know how that goes. Yeah, so of course, everything I mean. Part of the power of meditation to me is that there is nowhere to hide. My teacher is called, I guess, the pressure cooker and he would scream like burn it up. He's a very enthusiastic man, which is great, but yeah, there is nowhere to hide. And so, of course, yes, all of the things.
Kevin:Like you become aware, you become at one with all of the things that you have done in your life. And for sure I caused harm, I was selfish, I hurt people, I took things, I was dishonest. I mean, there's a litany of things that I could certainly point to and take accountability for for sure, and I think that was important for me to have a real stark, unflinching look at myself and my life through the lens of accountability and also through the lens of some compassion as well. I tend to be extraordinarily hard on myself. Like many people in addiction or just people in the world, I tend to criticize myself, I demonize myself in a way that I would never to somebody else. I'm way more gracious with everyone else on the planet than myself. So there was a time for me to also practice some softening, some level of self-kindness has been, like, really important. It's still an ongoing part of my training, for sure is to extend that kindness to myself as well.
Amber:I really love the way that you put that, because I think one of the things that we do, at least in our culture and in the United States, is we conflate punishment with accountability and how someone arrives at accountability. If you are in a state of constant shame, isolation, self-hatred, all of those things, there's no place for accountability, right? Because you're not extending yourself that self-compassion. So I love the way that you really articulated that process of extending that self-compassion, because I mean, we went from I was four and I was kidnapped and taken to Puerto Rico to a journey through addiction. So, like, looking at all things in aggregate, here you are still standing. That's amazing. So with that, I think this is a great transition point to talk about. What are you up to right now?
Kevin:Shit, I don't know. No, I'm kidding. Thank you for saying that. It's really nice. I should say too that like the environment of the prison I think this is probably true anywhere, maybe even magnified more so in Florida it was not an environment that had any interest in my healing or like repairing myself or moving forward to be a productive member, I mean despite the advertising. So like I was the band room guy, at some point they put me into the cabinet making program. They're like we're going to give this guy a vocation. So I went through the cabinet making program and I got a certificate of cabinet making and then, because I'm such an organized, eloquent fellow, they made me the cabinet making teacher's assistant. So I was the teacher's aide in the cabinet making department. That's how it-.
Amber:Otherwise known as like exploited labor 100%.
Kevin:And then also, no one ever taught me how to build a fucking cabinet Like ever ever. I have this certificate that is utterly I mean. It is useless. It's smoke and mirrors. No one was teaching me anything.
Amber:So I won't be calling you for my house renovation.
Kevin:Please don't, unless you want a real shit cabinet. The teacher was the janitor. He would put his feet on the desk. He sold tobacco to the prisoners, which is comical sort of. But also when I was released from prison now the onus is on me, I am expected to Go build a cabinet Right. So any failure to thrive is now like, oh, a reflection of my personal failure. We did everything we were supposed to do to give Kevin a shot and actually it's just simply not true. So that was jarring for me. And then, when I came home from prison, I had been clean for several years at this point. I had played music, I taught, I gave music lessons, I had been meditating. I felt like really on fire to be a source of good in the world. I couldn't wait to get home to my community and just sort of like expose that, what had been happening. You know, somewhat like illuminate the realities of incarceration and also just like get involved in some good things. And it was way challenging.
Jason:And so when you came in the community, said this guy's been clean, we embrace you. Everything's great, the opportunities were at your door, the world was your oyster and things were fantastic.
Amber:You had no problem getting any like picture ID. None of those things happened, right?
Kevin:Jesus. I mean, I was on fire and it was a bucket of water over my head almost immediately. It was so jarring. So my mom was still alive at the time. I remember like we went to like a Starbucks. I was like, oh my God, I'm going to get a coffee, like a delicious drink, and I told the person behind the counter I just got out of prison. My mom was like you got to stop saying that to people. I was so excited. She was like this is not landing the way you think this is landing. I was so enthusiastic.
Jason:Well listen, if I was working at the Starbucks or I was a customer at that Starbucks and you said I just got out of prison, I would give you a high five and say welcome home. So you never know who you're going to encounter in these places.
Kevin:Correct. I wish you had been in that Starbucks. That would have helped To your point. It was really hard like getting an ID, getting stability. It was hard to like find a place to live. I actually I slept in the parking lot of a homeless shelter for a while. Our local homeless shelter here in Gainesville, florida, is called Grace Marketplace and it used to be Gainesville Correctional Institution. It's an old prison that's been retrofitted into a homeless shelter. So yeah, grace Marketplace, the homeless shelter, it is an amazing organization. They've helped I don't even know how many like thousands of people now. They've reduced homelessness here. But undeniably it is an old prison.
Kevin:So anyone who's come out of incarceration, if you show up there, you're like, oh my God, like the last thing I can bring myself to do is, you know, go from prison to prison. So I elected. I was like I can't go in there. I can't, I can't go in there. So I slept in the parking lot. I ended up working there years later. Oddly enough, I ended up going back there and working as an advocate and as a guest ambassador. I worked there for like two and a half years or something like that Amazing organization.
Kevin:But that's how I came home was like you've gone through this incarceration, congratulations. Now you're homeless, congratulations. Now it's going to be hard for you to find a job. I was on probation. I had this like long list of like debt as well. So there's like probation fees that there's if you have to do like any sort of like drug testing people. Some people have like ankle monitors, polygraphs, anger management classes there's like a long list, depending on your situation, of what you have to pay for under threat of reincarceration. So I wasn't like back on a level playing field. I, you know I came out into a deep, deep hole and it was terrifying. You know like there are tears of joy. I'm home. When I finally hugged my daughter again, when the ocean touched my body, I mean like you know bawling, you know beautiful moments. And then also you had Starbucks Fucking Starbucks.
Amber:I mean arguably I'm not a starbucks fan, but I could see where that could be exciting yeah, it was exciting.
Kevin:I was like, oh, a chai, a chai tea, a dirty chai, how I've, how I've fantasized about you for these long years. What year did you get out? Uh, so this is, uh.
Kevin:The beginning of 2016 is when I came home okay, all right, yeah, so there was tears of joy, all these things, but then also like this sheer terror, because probation is like if you don't check these boxes and start producing money, as if by magic the solution will be to reincarcerate you. So in our County here, like a 23%, like a quarter of probation violations due to a lack of money. Like a 23%, like a quarter of probation violations due to a lack of money not a new crime, not an offense.
Kevin:The crime is your bank account. You are just too poor to be free, and so the solution is to reincarcerate you and put you back into the environment. That can only exacerbate that problem the next time if you're lucky enough to come home. So that was my reality I eventually, really through sheer mercy not because of my like extraordinary drive or ambition Everyone has drive and ambition Mercy Somebody gave me a job. Somebody I know gave me a job at a restaurant, which is not what I like wanted to do in my heart of hearts, but it was like I will take anything. I was so desperate and so I was like I'm going to be the best goddamn employee this rich man has ever seen. And so I was. And so, like, I eventually took on this like management role there shortly after. So that was like a stabilizing thing and that was important for me to have that stability. It gave me like a little bit of income and which was missing, and it removed the threats of reincarceration, at least for money for a while.
Jason:Some restaurants are known for their culture of having drugs around and things like that. Was that an issue at this restaurant?
Kevin:Yeah, it's just like every restaurant, yeah for sure. Yeah, I mean that is a very common thing and there are not everybody, but there are some folks that were there that were definitely like using that was a reality. I was around that and at the time I was not only was I totally sober, but I was like also militant vegan at the time as well. So, like the owners of this restaurant were like, oh my God, like you're like a unicorn, like you're a vegan straight edge guy. So yeah, I was definitely a loner in that regard in the restaurant. It was fine. Actually, actually being around that stuff was no problem.
Amber:I mean, in prison I was around that stuff all the time, so it was no good, yeah so I love one of the things that you said, so I want to just sort of repeat it or highlight it or lift it up a little more. You said I was going to be the best damn employee that this restaurant ever had. So I want to highlight this, because here's what happens. People say, oh, this person can't possibly be reliable. They just got out of prison, this, you know. Like I can't trust them.
Amber:And there's all this stigma around people who are formerly incarcerated, and my experience has been that the most reliable, determined people with the most grit that are going to be amazing employees. I hate to say it like this, but the truth of the matter is, when you have so much to lose, right, you are really going to do your best to keep yourself in a stabilized situation, and that tends to go a couple of different ways. That goes oh, I recognize this as a business owner and I lift you up. Or it goes oh, I recognize this as a business owner, I'm going to exploit that desperation. Oh yeah.
Kevin:So let's let's talk a little bit about that. Yep, I have seen all of that. My experience was the first example where the guys were like they were super supportive, really great guys. I mean honestly, those guys saved my life, Like in, with no, no exaggeration. Those guys absolutely like, they saved me. I love them dearly still, I support their restaurant.
Kevin:They're great anyway, uh, but yeah for sure, there there are some like companies, even here locally, where like that is sort of their um, their business model is exploiting people who are in a fragile, vulnerable place, oftentimes many who are formerly incarcerated. We're exactly like you're saying we got you by the balls. We got you by the balls. We know that you need this job, we know that you need this money and so we're going to subject you to long hours or backbreaking work. It's like from the slammer to the hammer, they say like you have been released and now for the rest of your life you will be relegated to hard labor or low wages. Every sentence is a life sentence. You will be exploited until the end of your days. You are now only good for backbreaking work, whatever it may be. And yeah, and to your point, oftentimes they take advantage of that and people aren't fairly compensated. There's a ceiling for their advancement, all of the things. Actually, I'll be excited when we'll get there, but we can talk about some of the great outcomes that we've seen with jobs through our work here has actually been like be transformative as well.
Kevin:I worked at the restaurant for several years and it was like okay, I was like stabilizing my mental health is the last thing that people take care of when they come home. And that came back to haunt me after like a couple years, definitely feeling like depression, anxiety, like some suicidal ideations, even just like God, I felt so ate up before I left prison. I knew I was going back to court. I was like I'm going to go home, like I knew it was coming. And I went to the mental health worker at the prison and I was like, hey, I'm having these like challenging feelings, I'm feeling anxious, I'm feeling agitated, I'm scared. And the mental health professional at the prison told me oh, you got to stuff all that.
Amber:I'm sorry. What Can you repeat that?
Kevin:It's like you got to stuff all that. He just told me to stuff it and I knew enough from my past history in recovery spaces and in just the world of obvious mental health that like the advice to stuff it can't possibly be the thing. So I carried that home and so after a couple of years I felt really ate up. I eventually went to our local crisis center here, ended up being just by coincidence paired with a fabulous therapist really helped me a lot. This poor person. I would go into her office twice a week and just ball my eyes up, and then I went once a week and then I went every other week and then I went once a month and I just had to have like a space to like process like the atrocities that I had experienced and witnessed in prison. I skipped over like a thousand horrible things that I saw while I was in prison, the way they treated people and just awful things that happened while I was inside. That was haunting me, finally kind of started to make some headway there, feeling better, and I was like you know, this is great, I am stable, I am home, I have this job, but I felt like that drive, like that purpose was missing from my life and so I was like I really want to do something.
Kevin:Something I had been doing some advocacy work through some pro-prisoner groups and I shared my experience here and there and was sort of cutting my teeth a little bit in the world of activism and advocacy. And then, just by chance, somebody I know was like hey, have you heard about? There's this thing called Community Spring that's starting up and they're looking for people who've experienced poverty before to do a five-month fellowship. I was like I'm not really sure what these words mean. I don't know what you're talking about. So I was like that sounds interesting.
Kevin:So I looked through this application and it was like what communities do you identify with? Can you talk about your experience with poverty? And I was eager to do something. So I applied, I interviewed with these people. It was like Lindsay and Max, these people they had. They're from Gainesville and they'd been working in DC for years and had just come back to Gainesville. They wanted to do some work in the South and they were all about economic justice. A fellow for this little five month experiments, just to see like is it a good idea? The idea being that people closest to the problems are closest to the solutions and so wanting to prioritize.
Jason:So you just quoted Glenn Martin. We have to, we have to give him credit and and in terms of what you're doing, what year is this?
Kevin:It started in January of 2020. So five years ago, a little bit over five years ago.
Jason:Wait.
Amber:Right, right, when COVID was was becoming into the world. Remember that.
Kevin:I recall yeah, yeah, so, yeah. So we started in January In Florida. Perfect, what could go wrong? Yeah, so we started in January 2020. And the idea was just like, okay, what can we do here locally to address poverty? And it was like, based on your experience, kind of like, what do you think? This is going to be a bit of a think tank? You are the experts and people who have experienced poverty are the ones best equipped to address poverty. Come up with genius solutions to poverty. And so, by utter coincidence, the five of us had all what kept coming up was the justice system has impacted our lives either directly or indirectly. Some of us had been incarcerated, some of us it was like a family member, and we're like what we see here in our county, in our community, is there is zero, zero, zero, zero re-entry supports. There is nothing. There's the probation office, which feels like the antithesis of support.
Amber:Right, I was like that doesn't count.
Kevin:That's not it. And then if you looked up re-entry support anything, you could maybe get there's a phone number and if you called it it rang at the library. Some good hearted person that worked at the public library had basically set up like a line and they would do what they could to offer some support. Basically. So, like wouldn't it be amazing if, sort of similar to like aa, like that lived experience, what if there was like a peer support type thing for people who'd been incarcerated? Wouldn't that be amazing? And so we're like okay. So we started like kind of building out the structure for that. And then we're like but wouldn't it be great if, while you're still inside, you got some information about how to navigate coming home, like what to expect and like some resources? Because I can't I'm in the fucking parking lot of the homeless shelter, like you know, there's like it's like a mystery of like what to do and how to do it. So we put together like a resource guide, like a, like a trifold, and then we got a list of everyone who was coming home to our County within the next X number of months and we mailed all of them these resources while they were still inside. And then we were doing meetings when people were coming home. We're having peer support meetings.
Kevin:To your point, earlier COVID arrived and so we were like, oh shit, we had to stop getting together. It threw a huge monkey wrench into everything. But we had built this momentum and we wanted to still do something, and we had heard about the power of direct cash assistance for different populations. We're like, yeah, let's do that, even though it's not going to be related to incarceration. Anyone who is receiving food stamps, snap benefits, could basically put their name in a hat.
Kevin:As much money as we could every month, just through the community, and we were given out $300 checks. So basically, we did a lottery draw every month and it was like, okay, great, we could help 20 people this month and so we would go hand deliver $300 checks and it was really powerful for people. It was like the community raised this money, the community is delivering this money. It was really like really grassrootsy direct cash assistance, and 300 bucks is not obviously a life changing amount of money, but if you can kind of put yourself back in the space of like the summer of 2020, it was like toilet paper is. You know? 300 bucks felt like you know a zillion dollars.
Amber:Also, 300 bucks is the difference between paying a probation fee and not going back to prison or, you know, your car being repossessed. It's not a lot of money, but when you're living in poverty, yes it is.
Kevin:Means a lot. Yeah for sure it was a big deal. And so that got the attention of our mayor at the time, who had just, by coincidence, he had just joined this coalition called Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, which is just a group of mayors from around the country that think guaranteed income is just a good policy idea, that it's just a good practice. And so he reached out to Community Spring and was like, hey, would you be interested in running a guaranteed income pilot? If so, we'd have a little bit of seed funding to get it off the ground. And so, like everything we had a lot of discussions of, like us impacted people, like could we do this? Should we do this? This is like a brand new organization.
Kevin:Anyway, we're like we came back, we're like it would be cool to do this, but what if it was for formerly incarcerated people? Based on our previous work already, like, wouldn't this be an amazing synergy of reentry support and direct cash assistance? And they're like, yeah, okay, let's do that. And so that sort of planted the seed for what is now our program, which is called Just Income. And we're now in our third year of doing that. We're our third cohort of people. We've had 157 recipients. We've given out over a million dollars to people here in Alachua County, florida, and that has become my job here. I was initially the program manager helping to get the program off the ground, and my title now is Director of Guaranteed Income here at Community Spring.
Jason:Somebody comes out of prison and they somehow get connected to your program and now they apply and they get a check regularly.
Kevin:Yeah, so the way we do it now. So we, similar to our previous direct cash assistance, we raise as much money as we can and that tells us we do like an annual lottery draw, and so the current iteration, and we've made changes. So again, we rely on the genius of people who've been through it. So every year we've refined our work and we've asked our recipients how can we make this better? So let's say, the current criteria is if you've been released within the last year, you can put your name in the hat and you get 800 bucks a month for 12 months. So you get a full year of it's $9,600 over the course of a year.
Kevin:So obviously that is not like enough to totally live on, but it provides a cushion, some breathing room, some stability. It used to be like a monthly payment. Now we're based on feedback. The first and the 15th of every month is 400, 400, 400, 400, with the idea being that it'll increase stability financially, mentally, all the things. So the first year we did it, we were studied by the University of Pennsylvania and the Center for Guaranteed Income Research. They did a mixed methods randomized control trial. So it's not just some ding-dangs in Florida telling you this is a good idea.
Amber:There are a lot of smart people in Florida too, which is fair.
Kevin:Correct For sure, but we want this to hold academic scrutiny. We want this to be a robust study that people can point to for decades to come. And so we're like really happy and stoked. And so just earlier, just a few months ago, we released the full academic results of our pilot year and the results were astounding. So, like that year that is in question, that is being released now the research results all that we did, all that we did.
Kevin:The only thing in this county that was happening is we gave people money and we were nice to them. Period, it was money and kindness. There was no, there's still no other existing reentry supports. There was still no other like there was no reentry center. There was still no other like there was no reentry center. Since then we have passed a fair chance hiring ordinance, phone calls are free from the jail. We wiped out 15, 16 jail and court fees and now there was a reentry center staffed by formerly incarcerated people. So we've changed the ecosystem locally.
Kevin:But the year in question, all we did was money and kindness. It reduced recidivism by 31 percent. It cut money related probationrelated violations nearly in half, food insecurity went away, mental health skyrocketed and jobs, oh my God, it did not lead to some sort of rash of unemployment or laziness. In fact, people that got the money stabilized and improved their jobs. We knocked it out of the park and it just goes to show that what people really need is not compliance, control, surveillance. What people need is resources. People need some support and just be treated and recognized as you are right in this moment.
Jason:So you, first of all, congratulations. Wow, what an amazing story. You validated Maslow's hierarchy of needs. That was great and it's interesting because, like you said, put people in this, typically put people in this situation where you say you better go get a job or else you're going to be reincarcerated and we're not going to give you any type of support. Go figure it out. And you've got this label on you. You have no stability and you're worried about how am I going to have a roof over my head, when am I going to get food and what's going to happen next. And so what you did was you took sounds like you took some of that initial pain out of the way so that people could focus on recovery, reintegration, working things out, and they don't need a probation officer standing over them saying do you have a job yet? Do you have a job yet? Do you have a job yet, when they're trying to figure out where their next meal's coming from.
Kevin:Yep, we didn't ask anyone to prove they were ready to get this money or to demonstrate their worthiness. Everyone is worthy of support, as they are right now. That's true 24 hours a day, and the money is truly, truly, truly, no strings attached. People can use it for anything they wish. There's no conditions on it. Oftentimes, support comes with this paternalistic nature of like you must use this for utilities or you got to take a financial literacy class. It's like I'm not stupid, I'm not poor because I'm stupid, I'm poor because I don't have any money. It's like I'm not stupid, I'm not poor because I'm stupid, I'm poor because I don't have any money.
Kevin:People who have experienced poverty are actually quite good with money, and so we saw people leverage the income for amazing things. Like to your point earlier about exploitative employers Jada, she had a job. She was at a motel cleaning. Her employer knew she was on probation and weaponized that against her all the time and it was like here's horrible hours, horrible pay, and she was stuck because she had no there's no buffer, and so he would threaten to call her probation officer if she didn't like acquiesce to his extraordinary demands. And so when she, when she got this money, she was like kiss my ass she was like bye, bye.
Amber:My human value is worth more than this situation. Kevin, I love that. You said all we gave them was money and kindness and for those that can't see me, I'm cupping my hands and kind like the part about kindness and being treated like an actual human being in a world that places so many barriers in front of you cannot be understated. Would you agree with that?
Kevin:100 percent. A lot of folks have reported that the money was great. It afforded me some material fill in the blank whatever that was me, some material fill in the blank, whatever that was. However, the fact that I was like trusted and just seen as a person and treated with like full humanity and like I mean people come in like we call them by their names, we're talking out like we treat people like you know, like we would want to be treated, and people would say like that actually, in some ways, has had more of a lasting effect than even like the money itself. That was a vital component. It wasn't just the money.
Amber:It helps people tear down some of the internalized messages about who they are. When there is someone external saying I see you, you are a human. Human because it can't be really explained except for those who have experienced the labeling and the surveillance and the incarceration and the trauma and all of those things, what that does to your yourself as a person and how you think about yourself is am. I characterizing that correctly.
Kevin:That's right, yeah. When everything is telling you what a piece of shit you are, at some point you start to think, oh, I'm a piece of shit. I mean, yeah, you internalize all of those things you begin to. I mean your view of yourself changes and that's sort of reinforced by what you're seeing in the culture and everything around you. One of my favorite stories. Like I said, I ended up working at the homeless shelter years after I had slept in this parking lot One of the greatest experiences of my life. It was fantastic working with folks in there and just getting to know people Really informative for me as just a human being.
Kevin:But there was somebody there. Her name was V and she had been incarcerated. She was a profound domestic abuse victim actively at that time even her partner at the time. It was really bad. She was eligible to get the guaranteed income and it's a lottery draw, but she put her name in there, she was eligible, she met the criteria and she got selected. And so from the outside, looking in, they could be like, oh well, this is a person. She's living at a homeless shelter, she has substance use stuff going on. What a waste. And she proved everybody wrong.
Kevin:V used the money. She got away from her abuser. She was able to extricate herself from an abusive relationship because she had the resources to escape. She got into stable housing. She addressed her addiction. She reconnected with her children and got certified for work and even years. So her, her guaranteed income ended two and a half years ago. She's still clean to this day. All she needed was someone to just like believe in her. She has like the best quote. I use it all the time. She said hope goes a long way for people who are accustomed to hopelessness. Like just believe in me for one second. Like you'd be amazed at what it means.
Jason:I mean hope is definitely a thing right. I mean, when we talk about people who I've seen, people who have given up on hope I know Amber has seen people who have given up on hope and you know, just being that inspiration, your story alone you know what you've been able to do without even helping anybody directly like your story alone gives people hope and inspiration and I'm sure listening to the podcast today it's going to give people hope and inspiration going forward that people can overcome some really horrible circumstances.
Kevin:Yeah, I hope so. Yeah, I mean, there's good things in the world. They do exist. We're now in our third year, our third cohort. We continue to sort of like refine our model as we move forward.
Kevin:Our three pillars here at Community Spring is income power, community People need income to meet their needs power to change systems and a community to belong in. And it's cool we're part of this like of this national coalition. We've been sought out now by 35 plus organizations and cities eager to learn from our playbook and how can we do something here. Some of those folks are still planning, some have launched their own guaranteed income programs. It's cool to be a part of it now this year, especially the summer and we're now in the coming up summer of 2025, doing a lot of speaking engagements and sharing the results in conjunction with folks who are working on similar things from different parts of the country as well. So it's cool like we're part of like this re-entry cash coalition and hopefully like showing that when people just have like their resources that they need, they do better and it's actually not only is this like good from a human perspective, this is actually it's like fiscally, it's cheaper.
Amber:It makes makes so much like logical, scientific, social sense.
Kevin:Yeah, I mean it's a better use of resources. It's a win, win all the way around. Yeah, it's a safer, more stable community. People are happy. You want your neighbor to be happy.
Amber:Kevin, there is so many wonderful things about your story and, as Jason already said, it is always our hope that people can be inspired by the bravery of our guests coming on here and sharing their story, and so my final question to you, as we wrap up our time together, is if you had one piece of advice for someone who was on a similar journey to your own, what would that be?
Kevin:I think all the time. There was one day when I was in prison. I hadn't been there very long, I was in prison and I guess I had been there maybe like a few months. It was hot as shit. I remember that, like I said, florida has no air conditioning. I was just in this cell. My bunkie at the time was somewhere else. I was just in this cell by myself. It felt like I was in an oven. I remember looking out the window through the bars at this hyping hot patch of dirt. It was just like beaming like scorching sun. It was like barren nothing could grow. It was just like so, so, fucking hot.
Kevin:And I remember thinking like I'm never going to get out of here. I'm going to, absolutely, I'm going to fucking die in here, I'm never going to make it out of this prison. And then also like this sort of haunting thought of maybe you've never not been in here, you know, maybe like you've always been in this prison, like sort of like reality has started getting really shitty and I felt like pretty positive, my life is over, there's nothing good will ever happen to me again, happy that I was so, so wrong. And so I try to tell people all the time like you just don't know. I know things feel so awful right now. Things can feel so discouraging and it can seem like I can't even envision the path ahead for me. Just stay, just stay. You just don't know. Just stick with it. It will not always be like this. There's definitely good things happening in the world. There are good people in the world. Just don't give up on yourself. Just keep staying, stay.
Amber:Just don't give up on yourself. Just keep staying. Stay doing. Is there for people to look at? Is there a particular contact information that you might want to say audibly, like how people can find you on the internet or reach out to your program?
Kevin:Yeah, for sure. So yeah, our website is definitely the best way to reach us. It is csgnvorg, that's Community Spring Gainesville, so csgnvorg. And yeah, people can sign up for our newsletter. They can contact us directly through the website. Definitely would love people to follow our work, follow us on social media, all those things. Anyways, just keep up with what we have going on.
Jason:So thank you, kevin. When we are going to talk with somebody new, sometimes we know a little bit about their story. We knew a little bit about your work. I was very happy with the way you tell the story. I was with you all the way, from your childhood, all the way up to the good work you're doing now. So I appreciate you for coming and, like I said earlier, you inspired me and I'm sure you're going to inspire others because this is a great story. So thank you for being here and, amber, until next time.
Amber:We'll see you next time.
Outro:You've been listening to Amplified Voices, a podcast listing the experiences of people and families impacted by the criminal legal system. For more information, episodes and podcast notes, visit amplifiedvoicesshow.
