SCA GRANTEE SUCCESS STORY: Cherokee Nation’s Key to Long-Term Employment after Jail
This story is part of Second Chance Month 2025. Click to view more on the state and success of the Second Chance Act.
The Coming Home Reentry & Justice Involved Program, managed by Cherokee Nation Career Services under its Recovery Programs division, serves Cherokee Nation citizens involved in the justice system, first by addressing their needs immediately after release and then by helping them achieve longer-term employment goals.
The program assists roughly 350 people annually, focusing on those residing in or returning to the Cherokee Nation Reservation. It operates mainly at the LaSalle Corrections facility in Groesbeck, Texas, for men with sentences longer than one year and engages with other county jails to serve both men and women.
Coming Home’s comprehensive, tailored approach sets it apart. Led by Matthew Lamont, director of recovery programs at Cherokee Nation Career Services, the program adjusts its offerings based on individual needs.
It addresses immediate concerns such as housing, food, and clothing before focusing on longer-term priorities like employment goals. Crucially, program participants also receive support for behavioral health care and recovery. The program serves people during their transition immediately after release, and in continuing years if needed.
SCA funding helps refine program features
Many program features were developed and refined with the help of Second Chance Act (SCA) funding, as program staff learned what worked well for participants and what did not.
“While we were fairly successful at finding employment options upon release,” said Director Lamont, “we found that things such as mandated probation, drug court, or behavioral health appointments would lead to excessive absences and dismissal [from employment].”
This observation lead program staff to:
- Focus more closely on basic needs at the time of release to ensure that participants are job-ready when they enter the workforce.
- Develop more partnerships with worksites that were willing to hire people who are working through reentry barriers. These partnerships often involve subsidized wages through a Cherokee Nation employment program, which eventually can lead to unsubsidized employment.
- Integrate staff and volunteers with personal experience in the justice system into the program, including certified peer support specialists.
- Work to overcome geographic and logistical barriers to service delivery—reentry challenges can be exacerbated by the rural nature of the Cherokee Nation Reservation.
One person’s “Coming Home” success story
The Coming Home program has had notable successes, such as broadening the reach and depth of services that contribute to participants' healing and reintegration into their community.
For example, one Cherokee Nation citizen and Coming Home participant spent over three decades in prison after initially being sentenced as a youth.
“It’s a different world out here after being incarcerated for 35 years,” he said. “I left as a 17-year-old kid and came back a 53-year-old man, and things are different.”
He went on to be trained as a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning technician and was hired as a specialized maintenance technician.
"It’s not just help with school and the job placement,” he explained. “The Cherokee Nation made the transition much easier. I couldn’t have done it without them.”
Looking forward, the Coming Home program aims to sustain and expand its successes by incorporating best practices and further developing peer support services. The Cherokee Nation is now expanding this initiative into the Career Services Reentry Program, using outcomes-based contracts to incentivize education and employment success by offering recovery housing and kinship housing.
