New Horizons transitional home opens up for incarcerated women

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WAND)- The First Followers New Horizons transitional home has officially opened and is looking for incarcerated women to join its program.

This home is specifically designed to help incarcerated women reintegrate into society by assisting them with finding employment and pursuing educational opportunities.

New Horizons transitional home opens up for incarcerated women

Casandis Hunt, the director of New Horizons, has long dreamed of creating a home for women after experiencing incarceration herself. She acknowledged that while she was fortunate to have family support during her time, not everyone is as lucky.

"When I came home, we didn't have these types of programs. We didn't have a community that helped. Everybody would look down on you, saying they're not going to do anything. But with this program, it gives us a chance to be able to know that you can learn your own self," said Hunt.

The goal of this home is to provide women with a safe space where they can learn and grow in a positive environment.

According to Marlon Mitchell, the Executive Director and Founder of First Followers, the men's transitional housing program, called First Steps, has been very successful for incarcerated men. He hopes to achieve the same success for the women's program.

"Success is just helping people from a transition state into self-sufficiency. So the men, that motto has worked for them. So now we're just replicating that with the women and hopefully those types of outcomes will occur with the women," said Mitchell.

First Followers was able to acquire the house through a collaboration with the Housing Authority of Champaign County. The house was originally slated for condemnation, but First Followers intervened and proposed to use it as a transitional home. As a result, a partnership was formed.

"The executive director of the housing authority has been impacted by incarceration because his father was in prison when he was young. And so he understood the mission, and so the collaboration was born," said Mitchell.

To learn more about the First Followers, click here.