They lift your spirits, prompt you to think, make you feel grateful and inspire you to do more. They connect you to our community, shining a spotlight on what's good about our city. They're stories that are Uniquely Milwaukee.
Terence works in auto tech. Recently, he serviced a vehicle and managed to keep his hands perfectly clean.
“I’m actually changing the oil,” he explained. “Right now, they’re giving us a speech about the PPE [personal protective equipment].”
How did he do it? Virtual reality.
“This is very realistic. I actually dropped my wrench. Had to pick it back up,” he said with a laugh.
“I like it compared to actually changing oil,” he continued before pausing to evaluate his own approach. “You know what? I just thought about something. I’m right handed. I’m doing everything with my left hand, been grabbing everything with my left hand. So that’s why it’s hard … I’m going across my own body.”
Terence was one of about a dozen people at Milwaukee County’s Community Reintegration Center (CRC) who had four industries to choose from: manufacturing and production, electrical construction, general construction, and automotive. It was all for a virtual-reality class that’s part of a six-week course from My Way Out, a program providing reentry services to justice-impacted individuals.
“I believe reentry does not begin when you come home,” explained Ruben Gaona, My Way Out’s executive director. “It begins the day those handcuffs go on you. That’s when you need to start preparing.”
The navy veteran launched the program after his own incarceration that followed an honorable discharge due to a back injury. He says he started selling drugs in 2007 to provide for himself and his family. In 2010, he was charged in a federal case.
“Obviously, when I came home, I didn’t know where technology was,” Gaona recalled. “So I started spending lots of hours with my laptop — learning, watching YouTube videos, learning how to use Excel, Word documents — because I also wanted to go back to school. I knew technology had advanced so much, so that started the passion of saying, ‘OK, there’s something here.’”
Now, his nonprofit hires staff who were formerly imprisoned while helping hundreds of people stay out of the justice system. The program, which has a 90% graduation rate, doesn’t just utilize the latest tools; it also introduces them to participants.
“The technology is just different,” said Demetrius, another member of the virtual-reality class. “I’m 51 years old, and we ain’t never had nothing like this back in the day. I’d try it again. I don’t wanna give up.”
Joshua, another participant, went for something a little more practical. “My favorite part is probably the money management, because that was my biggest problem on the streets,” he said. “I made a lot of money but never was really good at managing my money.”
Through community support and partnerships, residents learn technology and financial planning while receiving help in the form of housing, employment and transportation services after release. Crystal Keller, one of My Way Out’s reentry support supervisors, explained the motivation behind the program simply.
“We’ve served our time, right? When we lose our freedom, that's supposed to be paying our debt to society, right?” she asked. “I’m not downplaying anybody who may have been victimized, but I’m saying for the person who served their time and done what they were supposed to, it’s still very difficult when they’re coming home. And it can even be a barrier many years later.”
The average length of a stay at the CRC is 120 days. Superintendent Chantell Jewell said introducing residents to new and non-traditional experiences during that time enables successful reentry.
“We always have vocational opportunities, but we didn’t have the technology piece of it,” she said. “We could tell you about a job. We could probably bring some things in for you to experience. But through this virtual reality, it’s something different.”
