John Anthony Uriegas-Montez arrived at Crosspoint’s residential reentry middle on April 7 after spending a lot of the earlier seven years out and in of the felony justice system.
By September, the 35-year-old San Antonio native had a full-time job working a elevate truck with medical health insurance and a logistics certification he earned by way of a Goodwill second-chance coaching program.
And after 5 months of dwelling in a two-person room at a Eastside midway home, he had secured an residence of his personal.
Sitting within the chapel, practically the whole lot he owned was packed into black trash luggage and stacked on a desk. After 4:30 p.m., he would be capable to take them to his residence and start the subsequent stage of his transition.
“That is my first step into making an attempt to make it, “ Uriegas-Montez stated.
His path by way of Crosspoint gives a glimpse right into a much less seen a part of the felony justice system: the transition between incarceration and returning to on a regular basis life.
A step down from incarceration
Crosspoint has operated reentry packages in San Antonio since 1972. Also known as midway homes, residential reentry facilities present a structured place for individuals transitioning out of jail or dwelling beneath court-ordered supervision whereas they start working, reconnecting with household and securing housing of their very own.
The nonprofit holds a Federal Bureau of Prisons contract for its reentry program. Its males’s unit can home 85 residents at a time, whereas its ladies’s unit can home 35. Residents typically dwell two to a room and have entry to laundry amenities and computer systems they’ll use to seek for jobs. Not like in jail, residents also can depart the power to work, attend coaching and maintain different authorized wants locally.
Crosspoint Director of Operations Elisa Lopez-Canseco describes this system as a “decompression chamber” between jail and life on the surface.
“The entire objective is to get them prepared for that launch date,” Lopez-Canseco stated. “Whether or not that’s reconnecting with their relations. Do they want counseling? Do they want some sort of reunification help? Simply getting ready them for that day.”
However that transition nonetheless comes with vital restrictions and expectations. Residents are monitored by GPS and should usually account for the place they’re. Crosspoint workers conduct bodily checks all through the day, administer common drug and alcohol assessments and confirm residents’ places.
Employment can be an expectation. Residents who’re in a position to work are anticipated to discover a job, and people who are unemployed are required to actively search for one.
That stage of accountability could make Crosspoint residents engaging to some employers, Lopez-Canseco stated. Residents have their attendance at work monitored and verified and easily deciding to not present up for work can carry penalties that stretch past shedding a job.
“They wish to make use of our people as a result of they’ll’t simply name in. They need to work,” Lopez-Canseco stated. “They don’t have the posh of simply saying, “I’m not going to go to work at the moment.”
However discovering that work might be tough for individuals with felony data.
Crosspoint President and CEO Annette Rodriguez stated one of many greatest obstacles residents encounter is the stigma that’s hooked up to having hung out in jail — a document that may comply with them as they apply for jobs and housing, which regularly require background checks.
“As a result of they have been in jail, as a result of they have been incarcerated, some assume that they don’t deserve that second probability, or that they need to be someplace else and never inside our group,” Rodriguez stated.
That notion can obscure the roles individuals leaving jail play within the native workforce, she says.
“They might be serving you at a restaurant. They’re those which can be serving to in manufacturing vegetation and doing essential work,” she stated. “They’re productive and contributing to our group in numerous methods and thru completely different employment alternatives.”
Crosspoint tries to assist residents navigate these obstacles by way of a community of greater than 100 group companions that join them with job coaching, employers, housing help and different providers.
One longtime accomplice is Goodwill, which sends representatives to the power to attach residents with coaching packages for in-demand jobs which can be open to individuals with felony data.
Shortly after arriving at Crosspoint, a workers member launched Uriegas-Montez to a Goodwill consultant who usually visited the power. He took an evaluation and enrolled in a Licensed Logistics Affiliate program, coaching for work in warehouses and distribution facilities.
He scored a 90 on the certification examination, however discovering a job nonetheless required persistence.
Uriegas-Montez stated he spent hours in Crosspoint’s laptop room constructing a resume and submitting functions, typically aiming for as many as 30 in a day.
“Some individuals say, ‘Oh, I put one or two functions in,’” he stated. “However it’s important to keep in mind the trial-and-error stage of that entire utility course of as a result of some individuals are gonna learn it, some individuals received’t.”
By June 3, lower than two months after arriving at Crosspoint, he had landed a full-time job as a elevate truck operator at Tindall Corp.’s San Antonio operation.
By the point he ready to go away Crosspoint earlier this month, he had handed his 90-day mark and certified for well being, dental and imaginative and prescient insurance coverage and different advantages. He was additionally waiting for incomes a welding certification at St. Philip’s School, with hopes of ultimately turning into a welding inspector.
Uriegas-Montez credit Crosspoint with placing a few of these alternatives inside attain. Had he gone on to dwell with household after jail, he stated, his transition may have positioned one other monetary and logistical burden on relations making an attempt to assist him get established.
As a substitute, he stated, Crosspoint gave him a spot the place he may deal with workforce coaching, discovering a job and getting again on his ft whereas dwelling alongside others working towards comparable objectives.
“You come to a spot like this and it’s sort of intimidating wanting to vary and figuring out it’s essential to change,” Uriegas-Montez stated “However that being stated, there’s a sensible rule in life: if you happen to encompass your self with others which have the identical objectives and the identical priorities, it is going to make it easier to keep motivated and that’s labored out effectively for myself.”
Even with that progress, Uriegas-Montez stated the truth of how shortly his circumstances had modified hadn’t totally hit him but.
“Life undoubtedly took off fairly quick in these final couple months,” he stated. “Once I actually sit down and mirror upon it, I believe it hasn’t dawned on me but.”
A path that went off track
The trail that introduced Uriegas-Montez to Crosspoint was significantly longer than his keep.
His involvement with the felony justice system dates again to 2010, when he was 19, and this wasn’t the primary time he tried to construct a distinct life.
Uriegas-Montez was convicted of misdemeanor graffiti that yr. Across the similar interval, he started channeling his curiosity in graffiti into public artwork, working with San Anto Cultural Arts and different native organizations to color murals round San Antonio.
In 2011, he helped restore Finish Barrio Warfare, a Westside mural centered on an anti-violence message. On the time, Uriegas-Montez spoke publicly about discovering San Anto Cultural Arts as a youngster and discovering an outlet by way of mural work.
However his life didn’t proceed alongside the trail he envisioned then.
Over the next years, Uriegas-Montez accrued further convictions, together with assault inflicting bodily damage to a member of the family and felony drug possession. He acquired deferred adjudication within the drug case in February 2020, nevertheless it was revoked later that yr, leading to a two-year state jail sentence.
He was launched beneath obligatory supervision in early 2021, however was rearrested months later in New Braunfels whereas authorities have been in search of him on a parole violation warrant. Uriegas-Montez was present in possession of two firearms, a violation of his parole and the Gun Management Act of 1968, which prevents convicted felons from being in possession of or proudly owning firearms.
Uriegas-Montez ultimately pleaded responsible in federal courtroom to being a felon in possession of a firearm. In 2024, he was sentenced to 72 months in federal jail, with credit score for qualifying time already spent in custody, adopted by three years of supervised launch.
The federal decide ordered him to spend 180 days at a residential reentry middle, the requirement that ultimately introduced him to Crosspoint.
Uriegas-Montez stated incarceration gave him loads of time to contemplate what must be completely different when he obtained out.
“You’ve gotten time taken away from you since you’re paying again your debt to society,” he stated. “It was a variety of dwelling, and a variety of considering asking myself, how can I comply with by way of with this? How do I make the subsequent step work? How can I succeed doing this?”
These questions adopted him into Crosspoint the place his means to satisfy the necessities of his keep allowed him to be launched from his 180-day keep early following his gainful employment and talent to safe an residence.
Now he’ll spend the subsequent three years of supervised launch with one foot within the system. Some situations of his launch stay the identical, he’ll nonetheless be required to take care of employment or actively search it, dwell at an authorized residence, undergo drug testing and therapy and adjust to different restrictions imposed by the courtroom.
What has modified, he stated, is what he desires to construct inside these boundaries.
Monetary stability is now one in every of his greatest priorities. So is reconnecting along with his two kids.
“I’m decided to get again in my children’ life,” Uriegas-Montez stated. “By the point they arrive round, or they’re allowed to return round, I need them to see that their dad is doing effectively.”
He has not deserted artwork, both. Between work, coaching and the opposite calls for of reentry, he stated there isn’t a lot time for it now, although he nonetheless sometimes picks up a pencil or a paintbrush.
Uriegas-Montez doesn’t take into account his transition completed. As a substitute, he describes what he has completed as far as the inspiration for what he hopes comes subsequent.
“I planted the seed. I nurtured the tree and watered the bottom,” he stated. “The fruit’s not there but, nevertheless it’s coming. And when it does, it may not be one of the best factor, nevertheless it’ll come and a minimum of I’ve already planted my roots.”
