Inside a brick building on Chicago’s West Side — once part of a sprawling Sears Roebuck campus — is an adult transitional center, or halfway house, that’s home to 250 men completing sentences for criminal convictions and preparing to reenter society.
Just down the hallway from their living quarters, a high-ceilinged former gymnasium holds an unexpected sight: a two-story under-construction home, complete with exposed insulation and electric fixtures.
This is where residents of the halfway house, and other men and women who have been involved with the criminal justice system, train for a new chapter in their lives: work in the solar industry.
It’s part of a larger workforce initiative to inject equity into the state’s clean energy transition.
Illinois’ 2017 and 2021 clean energy laws created job training programs that prioritize people from marginalized communities, and include remedial education, interpersonal and professional skills, and wraparound services to help them with childcare, car problems, mental health needs, and other challenges.
The state has a specific focus on including the formerly incarcerated in this effort, and the Safer Foundation, headquartered in this brick building, has been central to achieving that.
Since 1972, the nonprofit has equipped people who were formerly incarcerated with skills and helped them get jobs. Safer President and CEO Mark Yates said that clean energy is a promising sector, offering entry-level jobs, opportunities to advance, and carpentry and electrical experience that also translates to other fields.
Safer says that its relationships with employers like utility-scale developer Millennium Solar Electric and residential installer SunRun help, since companies are often reluctant to hire people with criminal convictions or gaps in work history.
“They’ve been incarcerated beyond technology advances” in many cases, Yates noted, and may have to learn how to use a smartphone, for example, along with mastering solar technology.
In the past three years, more than 100 people have obtained clean energy–related industry certifications through Safer’s training, and 79 of them have gotten jobs, said Katrice Harris, the foundation’s training and employment account executive.
“The types of individuals we serve encounter a little more trouble with barriers, but we have staff fully certified and trained to help push to get these clients employed,” she said. “The job development team goes out and makes connections with employers, where they build relationships and create MOUs where employers agree to hire these clients and give them a second chance.”
Holistic approach
Yates said people with criminal convictions are often “better workers” than average, “because they feel this is their one and only chance to get something right.” But for many, work ethic alone is not enough.
That’s why Safer offers substance abuse recovery, anger management, and other social services in-house, which some trainees need not only for their health but also to comply with court mandates.
“They get workplace and diversity skills training, financial literacy, soft skills,” Harris said. “It’s all geared toward getting the guys and women credentially equipped so they can land jobs and become self-sufficient.”
Solar trainees have access to services that Safer offers its clients, including counseling and substance abuse treatment.
