INDIANAPOLIS — Food and hygiene products are often necessities that people coming out of jail do not have.
“If I was sitting on a case load of 60, I would say 10 to 15 of my clients were needing something,” Aldon Johnson, Case Manager at Marion County Community Corrections, said.
Johnson wasn’t the only case manager noticing the need, especially since sometimes when people are being released from jail, food pantries and community resources are closed for the day.
“If they are on home detention, every location has to be accounted for and they have to get approval before they leave their home,” Taylor Pierson, Pre-Trial Case Manager at Marion County Community Corrections, said. “Say you get released on a Friday, the likelihood of you getting a pantry before that next week — it’s just not going to happen.”
At one point, the need of their clients was so high the case managers would give them food out of their own lunch boxes.
Johnson and Pierson knew there had to be a better system, so they created the Welcome Home Initiative.