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| Employers finding ways to give former inmates a chance |
| By cjonline.com- Hey Joe |
| Published: 08/31/2015 |
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From Chris Farmer’s standpoint, reliable transportation and a little understanding from a potential employer are what it takes for most people who have been incarcerated to get and keep a job. “We have had to re-engineer our thinking caps and start looking for ways to remove the obstacles that keep people from working,” said Farmer, who employs work release inmates from the Shawnee County Department of Corrections at his Memory Foam Liquidators facility at Forbes Field. The company is a wholesale distributor of foam mattress tops and pillows. “The biggest obstacle that I have seen time and time again on applications is the person lost their transportation, so they lost their job,” Farmer said. Farmer, who has employed inmates who have served jail time, said that because Topeka Metro buses don’t run out to Forbes Field, getting those employees to his facility has been a challenge. He said at first he tried to have the former inmates, several of whom he had hired as full-time employees, picked up at the Shawnee County jail’s annex just east of downtown Topeka, but some of the employees still had trouble getting to that location. “One day we decided that we would start picking them up from their homes and this really seemed to work because they had a way to get to and from work,” Farmer said. “I think in a way this let them know that we value their help and let them know how much they mean to our company.” Read More. |
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