In 2016, the Greater Buffalo Racial Equity Roundtable identified the need to strengthen the reentry system in Erie County as one of its ten strategic goals to ensure that the region’s growth and prosperity benefited all of its diverse populations including those who have been incarcerated and involved with the criminal justice system. The Roundtable, composed of the county’s top elected officials, agency directors, business leaders, non-profit and faith leaders, and the philanthropic community, created the Erie County Reentry Coalition to carry out this objective. The coalition’s membership included representatives from the organizations on the Roundtable and added others who had a stake and interest in reentry including non-profit reentry providers, community activists, and individuals with lived experiences in contact with the criminal justice system. The work of both the Roundtable and the Erie County Reentry Coalition has been facilitated by the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo (CFGB).
To date, the major accomplishments of the Reentry Coalition have been to develop the Service Link Stop at 120 W. Eagle Street as a one-stop resource for clients in need of services; the expansion of jail and probation reentry programs and services through securing over $4 million in federal funding; the support for the Erie County Sheriff’s Office’s new Division of Community Reintegration; and the continued efforts to improve the care and coordination of services among members which occurs at quarterly meetings and which is the primary goal of this website.
An overview of the reentry coalition work is presented here:
