Dorchester service provider for recently incarcerated individuals shifts from residential to day programs in the face of funding challenges
On Saturday, April 5, Stacey Borden will begin her newest journey to provide educational programs, therapeutic services, and skills for those coming home from prison as well as for other formerly-incarcerated and system-impacted people.
Borden is the founder and executive director of New Beginnings Reentry Services (NBRS), which provided a home for women exiting prison. NBRS will transform from an overnight residential program for females into an all-gender day program and Borden will continue on with her vision of repairing harm and healing trauma. According to Borden, the New Beginnings Reentry Day Program will offer “healing spaces, mental health and substance use counseling, art and music therapy, yoga, and computer and financial literacy.”
In an interview with the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, Borden, not only formerly incarcerated but also an award-winning activist, said, “I wasn’t getting enough funding to hire the right individuals to give the women the programs and services they deserve coming out of prison. Instead of feeling like a failure, I reached out and got help from mentors, and one day, woke up and said, Let me be a day center.”
There are numerous resources available for people coming home or heading to reentry programs from prison. Some are detailed in brochures like “Coming Home,” which is featured on the Committee for Public Counsel website—but few of them are founded and run by formerly-incarcerated people.
“This is not just a program,” Borden said, adding, “It’s a movement towards restoration, dignity, and a future where we all belong.”
For NBRS, an “uphill battle” from the beginning
We profiled New Beginnings Reentry Services in January 2023, nine months after Borden first opened the doors of what she called a “women’s empowerment house” at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
That event was attended by state lawmakers and an audience of friends, colleagues, city officials, and others who heard Borden’s life-changing story of obtaining the house.
As we reported at the time, Borden made a PowerPoint pitch in a course she was taking at Boston College to business leaders who were invited to attend the final presentations of projects by students. Upon returning home, she received an email from a couple that wanted to finance the house. The donors have remained anonymous, but they consulted with Borden weekly until she found the $750,000 property in Dorchester and launched New Beginning Reentry Services with five women.
It took two years and an uphill battle, Borden said. That included installing a new sprinkler system, adding a fire escape, exit lights, and a fire alarm system. During the process, she learned regulations for installing a handicapped shower and bedroom, launched a crowdfunding campaign to purchase a commercial wheelchair lift that “cost a fortune,” and dealt with community resistance to the organization’s presence in the community. Those living near the house feared “property values would drop,” “crime would rise,” and “prostitutes would be running around,” Borden said.
But despite such pushback and funding issues, she persisted. Borden got approved for zoning in late 2022, and eventually was classified as a “women’s transitional residential program.“
Angelia Jefferson, one of the first cohort of 12 women who graduated from NBRS in three years, wrote in a text, “New Beginnings Reentry Services was one of the best things that could have happened to me when I came home.” Jefferson, who now lives on her own, works for Families for Justice as Healing, an organization led by incarcerated women, aiming to end the incarceration of women and girls. She said she needed help with everything from going to malls and experiencing large crowds to “getting an ID, opening up a bank account, and going to the grocery store.” After graduating with high honors, Jefferson mentored other women in the house.
The challenges of running a reentry program in Massachusetts
The classification of NBRS was always a problem for Borden in terms of securing funds.
Even though the program graduated women with 0% recommission of new crimes—one woman was sent back to prison because of ankle monitoring issues—Borden was constantly raising money. The house survived on large and small grants from organizations such as Community Empowerment and Reinvestment and the Woburn-based Cummings Foundation. Borden received funding from musician John Legend’s Unlocked Futures for those individuals who have initiated startups for formerly incarcerated people, while other grants came from a variety of funders such as health and wellness services for returning citizens. Borden also found some resources from the Healey-Driscoll administration. But finances were never secure.
The residence was also not classified as a long-term residential treatment program (LTRTP), Borden said, which became a problem for placing those on parole at NBRS.
A Massachusetts Parole Board spokesperson explained in an email about how parole beds are funded. They wrote that the agency “collaborates closely with key partners, including the Massachusetts Probation Service (MPS), Community Resources for Justice, the State’s mental health and disability service providers, and many others, to identify housing for vulnerable populations while also addressing other fundamental needs. These partnerships have successfully placed hundreds of individuals in transitional and sober housing.” Transitional housing programs are largely funded by the MPS with the Parole Board the largest referral source for this program.
Borden explained that “LTRTP licensing would have cost as much as $50,000.” Certification would have also meant her records would have to be reviewed quarterly, and Borden worried about her program being “overly controlled.” She said she’d have to purchase electronic monitoring equipment for $30,000, and employees would be subject to Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) background checks. “If we wanted funding from the Department of Health,” Borden said, “we’d have to have urine tests on site.”
The bottom line: her program couldn’t afford these things, financially or psychologically.
As a formerly-incarcerated woman, Borden has always felt people deserve a second chance. She said she founded NBRS for women coming out of prison to heal from trauma and gain skills to be successful in the community. She also takes pride in hiring staff members who themselves are formerly-incarcerated individuals, along with others impacted by the criminal legal system.
“CORI checks would have kept people from working for the program,” she said. Borden also didn’t want the women’s home to feel like a place of fear for residents, and rejected the idea of collecting urine samples on site. Parole officers did those tests elsewhere; the home, she said, should be “a place of healing.”
Borden also passed up some funding from the state that processes through Mass Alliance for Sober Houses (MASH). She took the training required to become certified, knowing the nonprofit funds some beds for those exiting prison on parole. In the end, though, Borden went in another direction. Since MASH funding is usually only for 90 days, and Borden wanted women to be able to stay in the house for up to 18 months, she didn’t want to start the cycle of having to seek new funding sources four times a year.
Forging a future for the formerly incarcerated
Borden said, “Our new vision is an educational model: computer literacy, financial literacy, culinary arts, leadership academy, etc. People will be able to Zoom in to many of the classes and services if they are on home confinement or can’t make it from Boston to Worcester or Springfield.” Borden is also working on having prisoners, who are close to reentry, Zoom in from behind bars.
The center plans to operate classes and services from 11am to 4pm, Monday through Thursday. For the most part, men and women will be referred from prisons, jails, parole officers, halfway houses, and medical facilities.
Borden has especially big plans for the computer lab. To become certified, there will be eight-week sessions. Some of the center’s other offerings will be available on a drop-in basis, while those involving more specialized skills, like culinary certification, will require attendance over a longer period of time.
There is a therapy and group room, as well as a healing space for yoga in the house. Among the more original ideas, there is what Borden calls the “museum” to educate people about the relationship of slavery to mass incarceration. All that plus a theatre and music space and a podcasting studio.
Money for the renovation and recreation has come from the state’s Bureau of Substance Addiction Services through a reentry initiative housed under the Department of Public Health.
A “grand reopening” featuring former Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins and tours of the renovated house for the community begin at 1pm on 36 Gaston Ave. in Dorchester on April 5. The programming itself is set to start on Monday, April 7.
Looking back on what it has taken to get to this point and how New Beginnings has had to adjust, Borden said she is proud that the center is built from “lived experience.”
“Because I have walked this path myself, I know true transformation comes through the power of the arts, education, and history, opening doors to self-discovery and growth,” she said. “Reentry is about more than just returning, it’s about reintegrating with purpose, healing the communities once harmed, and reclaiming our place within them.”
