The Ahimsa Collective

‍The Ahimsa Collective (TAC) was born out of a desire to instill greater humanity and healing into the American justice system, for all involved. Their four project areas address different aspects of system reform, all critical to the whole. TAC Co-Executive Director Sonya Shah says she started the organization loosely, to help individuals on both sides of the harm equation. It grew into the multi-pronged effort it is today through a recognition of need. “I was interested in creating possibilities for healing and compassion,” she says of her start in 2016. “I have faith that humans have the capacity to be good to each other. It all started from there.”

Co-Executive Director Richard Cruz joined The Ahimsa Collective to create and run, among other aspects of the organization, their People First Re-Entry (PER) program. As a seasoned drug counselor and certified tech specialist inside the prison system, he had the necessary skills and first-hand experience.

600,000 people are released from prison every year, and many of the releases come with a mandated or recommended stay in transitional housing. Those houses frequently mirror conditions in prisons – multiple people to a bunk-bed room, mandated drug programs whether the person has an issue or not, strict and very limiting regulations with punitive consequences. In essence, trading one form of incarceration for another, rather than providing the tools for moving successfully from prison life to being a free and positive member of society. Especially for those who’ve served decades-long sentences, that transition is far from simple.

The Ahimsa Collective operates two Oakland area re-entry homes of a very different nature, with a third that acts as a further stepping stone for some. Their goal is to demonstrate that when released women and men move into an atmosphere in which they have agency and support, they can better develop the emotional and tangible skills needed to become fully integrated and productive in their free-life communities. 

As Rich says, “What’s missing from the current system is the humane part of things. Released people need to feel they belong out in free society, after decades of being inside. That they’re actually safe and capable of making that transition.”

It can be a huge mental shift to envision what their new life could look like, and to feel they have the potential to make it happen. PER’s two re-entry homes, in pleasant neighborhoods, have eight private rooms each. “It feels like a home, not an institution” is how one resident describes it. Within that setting, the residents make all the decisions collectively about who gets into the house, how chores are accomplished, and how issues get resolved, with the guiding hand of an Ahimsa staff member who has been in their shoes. The combined sense of agency over their situation and connection to the group are important elements in establishing how they’re going to make their lives unfold independently, when they leave the home. As the resident further explains, “This is powerful because your voice has been silenced after years of incarceration, where you don’t have a voice with anything…that power is transitioned back to you,” at the Ahimsa House. 

Beyond meeting their basic human needs of food, warmth, safety and connection,

Ahimsa staff offer, when it’s wanted, support for what residents want to accomplish.  Two coordinators help residents find their way through tasks that may be new to them after decades of incarceration, such as getting an ID or a driver’s license, learning how to grocery shop, enrolling in educational programs, or finding work. Because the coordinators and house managers have lived the incarceration and release experience themselves and are trauma informed, they understand what activities can be overwhelming on release.

A third house, funded by The Patchwork Collective, has been converted to a next step house with a sliding scale of rental fees, to help residents establish a credit history and rental credibility in preparation for independent living. TAC also helps residents who are preparing to leave find housing and work through their network, who trust TAC House ‘graduates’ to be ready for both.

TAC offers outreach to many men and women who are leaving prison without having a place in one of their houses. Pick-up at the prison on release, a good meal, shopping for clothes and toiletries, transportation to wherever they’re staying on their first night out, or help in figuring out where that can be.

Given their small potential for resident rooms against the mass of people being released every year, The Ahimsa Collective sees itself as part of a network of organizations across the country exploring different ways of approaching the whole justice system cycle. “We aren’t interested in being a franchise and scaling our particular model,” says Sonya. “We’re building collaborative networks, sharing with, learning from, and sometimes funding others who are doing things their own way.” In effect, TAC is contributing to a movement toward a more humane system. 

Part of this task involves the complex process of measuring the results of their approach. Recidivism over time is always the gold standard in benchmarking success in re-entry programs, but The Ahimsa Collective wants to understand the many cofactors involved in reducing that phenomenon, in order to better create success. To that end, they’re developing an ongoing qualitative research study looking at the effect of key factors such as peer relations, support with accountability, purposeful work opportunity, and enhanced quality of life.

Experimentation involves risk, but without experimentation change is not possible. “You know that you don’t know everything, and funders have to accept that as well,” says Sonya. “The idea of risk is part of Trust Based Philanthropy; if I trust the wisdom of these people, then I trust what they’re doing with my money.”

The Patchwork Collective, no stranger to risk, is fully behind that idea.

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