On the morning Makeda Davis was coming home, her mom, Georgia Davis, cleaned her studio apartment, smoothing a tablecloth over a table and putting out bowls of Doritos and pistachios and a Welcome Home balloon.
Makeda has some sense of how hard this next year will be—but there’s also a lot she’s looking forward to: eating Jamaican oxtail, fresh vegetables, and sushi; decorating for Christmas; a big 40th birthday party. More than that, though, she wants her career back. Before she went to Bedford, she had a good job as a legal assistant for the city of New York. “I think of my daughter; she’s so beautiful, and she has all these expectations.
Her family moved around New York City as Georgia looked for better housing and jobs and safer neighborhoods. At 17, Makeda had her daughter. Though she didn’t finish high school, she got her GED. Makeda worked as a legal assistant and was taking online college courses when she got into the nightclub fight. She and the victim were arguing over a man, and Makeda says the two started brawling, a lot of other people joining in. “It’s just really sad,” she says of the fight.
Other than those activities, though, Makeda’s life in prison was largely a combination of boredom and pointless protocols: waiting an hour at the medical clinic for a scheduled appointment and then waiting for a guard to walk her back to the library. Things aren’t going great. She’s out of money, borrowing from friends, and she just found out she didn’t get a job she applied for online. She’s been at it with Merhanda, who quit her jewelry-store job just after Makeda came home. Merhanda, who lives with roommates, seems to want all of her mom’s time. Makeda has been drowning in logistics like gathering the required paperwork for food stamps and obeying her parole restrictions.
He tells her what Fortune offers: help applying for public assistance and the benefits to which she is entitled, such as food stamps or health insurance, access to lawyers, job-placement services, and parole-required programs, along with free hot meals for clients.I can do thisWithout formal mentorship, Makeda is grasping for guidance everywhere.
On her release, Makeda saw for the first time the trailer where prison visitors entered. “It’s not okay,” she says.
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