FOC helps ‘returning citizens’ navigate systems and life after Perryville

Business professional Valerie Ochoa often dedicates some of her free time sharing a personal story about the “pretty average” life she leads in the suburbs. It’s riveting — childhood trauma, life-altering mistakes, loss, redemption. Even the part about secured credit cards, credit scores and the wonders of electronic auto-save systems will make you feel something.

Suburbia is the setting of Ochoa’s story now. Eight months ago, she was incarcerated at Perryville Prison in Goodyear. She has spent big chunks of her adult life there.

Perryville is also where, with resolve and crucial support, Ochoa said she arrived at place in life that she is sure looks routine from the outside. But on the inside, she said she is “screaming and rejoicing and about to burst out of my skin.”

Arouet Foundation, which helps women prepare for and manage their transition to life beyond prison gates, is key to Ochoa’s post-Perryville success. The LISC Financial Opportunity Center model is key to Arouet’s success in serving an extremely vulnerable population. 

Arouet is entering the third year of a LISC Phoenix grant to operate the FOC, a program that offers financial and coaching services to help low- to moderate-income people develop healthy relationships with money. Phoenix-based Arouet is one of more than 100 FOCs in the nation that are embedded in trusted local community organizations with strong connections to the people they serve. 

“Incarceration translates into poverty,” Terry Benelli, executive director of LISC Phoenix said. “Even pre-trial detention, without a guilty conviction, can lead to damaged credit scores, lost jobs or evictions. CDFI’s and our FOC’s believe it is critical to help everyone have a pathway out of poverty. Predatory services are often the go-to for people who have been incarcerated. Arouet’s approach is different: they meet people where they are and center their work on building trust. That coaching model is what’s proving successful here in Phoenix.” 

Arouet Foundation CEO Alison Rapping said the LISC FOC model is foundational to everything the nonprofit does to help women successfully exit the justice system and move forward with their lives. 

“The goal in working with the women is to support them in being workforce ready, being emotionally ready and being able to take control of their financial future,” Rapping said. “The Financial Opportunity Center, with its commitment to job coaching, financial coaching and supporting people in obtaining all of the income support, was exactly the model that we were looking at. We understood how important it was that not only did our women get access to those supports, but that we were able to help them utilize that.”

The Arouet FOC and career center assists formerly incarcerated women in gaining soft skills they weren’t able to acquire at Perryville.  Services include one-on-one counseling, job readiness, access to education and network building. It helps women set financial goals, such as building credit scores, home and car purchases and savings. 

Release from prison in Arizona is an onerous, treacherous system with barriers and obstacles that create high odds for recidivism. Many women are released with very little to their name, except $250 in gate money that runs out quickly with costs of transportation, housing, food, clothing and parole fees. 

Arouet’s support in navigating systems and financial coaching is effective. The three-year recidivism rate of women supported by Arouet is less than 10 percent compared to an Arizona average recidivism rate of nearly 39 percent. During the past three years, Arouet has helped more than 1,000 women.  

COVID-19 added to the difficulties of transitioning out of the justice system. Basic steps such as getting an Arizona ID card and driver’s license necessary for applying for jobs and opening bank accounts were complicated by pandemic protocols and their ripple effects on the economy. LISC Phoenix awarded Arouet a COVID-19 emergency relief grant from Wells Fargo to provide basic assistance to women and their families.

Brandy Smith, a program manager at Arouet, teaches the pre-release classes at Perryville that are now done virtually because of COVID-19. Like Ochoa, she, too, served three stints at the prison. Her last stretch ended April 30, 2017. She took advantage of Arouet support and in 2018 became an employee of the foundation and a homeowner in February 2019. 

“When I’m doing virtual programming and they see behind me,” Smith said, “I tell them, ‘Listen, this wall that you see behind me, I own it, and if I can hold my life together, I’m telling you, it’s possible. I’ve been a repeat offender, a drug addict. I’ve been a taker my whole life. When you start to make some changes about yourself and change the vibe that you put out, it’s amazing the blessings that come to you ultimately.’ ”

Smith and Ochoa have similar Perryville paths but their stories are different. Both are part of an Arouet storytelling program intended to reframe conversations about incarceration and re-entry. 

As Ochoa’s story goes, she learned during a workforce development program that she is good at sales. During the last three years of her stay at Perryville, she worked and made a commitment to save and to boost her financial literacy. 

Upon release and with FOC coaching, Ochoa, who refers to herself as a “returning citizen,” established banking accounts that worked best for her, established a household budget that allows her to live comfortably and save. She also nursed her credit score back to health. In four weeks, it increased more than 160 points.

For the first time in her life, Ochoa has a career that pays a salary and holds opportunities for advancement. A year from now, she expects to be in a financial position to begin the home-buying process. She’ll study up on it in the meantime, as she continues to be the source of strength that she wants to be for her family and community.

“I think this is who I was supposed to be that entire time, and I’m finally here,” Ochoa said.  “I’m really good at being me. … I’m loving me.”

“You never know what you can accomplish when you have the right type of support. It’s amazing. It’s super amazing. … I don’t think there are any words that describe how great it feels.”