The nonprofit organization Challenge II Change is working with the Kane County Sheriff’s Office to open a transitional living house in Aurora for people recently released from prison and trying to assimilate back into society.
Founder Javier Reyes started the nonprofit to help other formally incarcerated people be able to return to Aurora, where he works as a neighborhood outreach specialist and serves on the governing board of the Fully Free Campaign, a statewide coalition that tries to dismantle barriers in life after prison.
Challenge II Change was recently awarded $475,000 from the Illinois Housing Development Authority to purchase a home on the 400 block of Iowa Avenue in Aurora for the program. Around five to eight people would live in the house at a time and could stay there for three to six months or more depending on need.
“I’ve never applied for a grant in my life, but it was something I always wanted to do,” Reyes said. “I just had the worst stomachache on the deadline date. But when I was awarded, the word awarded wasn’t even in my vocabulary because I’d never been awarded anything in my life.”
In 2007, Reyes was inspired to start the organization Challenge II Change while he was incarcerated after a supervisor at a federal prison asked him a question that haunted him: “Have you done the best you can in life?” At the time, he was serving a 25-year sentence after he was charged with conspiracy to commit bank robbery, bank robbery and possession of a firearm.
“That question literally tore me apart because I couldn’t answer yes to anything,” Reyes said. “I’ve never been the best dad or the best son. I was just surviving instead of living.”
The officer said “I’m going to challenge you to change,” prompting the organization’s name.
Reyes began creating a curriculum for the program with other inmates, forcing people to have tough conversations about things they never discussed before, from personal responsibility to healthy relationships and institutionalization, he said.
After he was released in 2020 after serving about 16 years of his sentence, he struggled to find work and housing and was inspired to create a transitional living home for people who were recently released from jail.
“I needed to find a job and had relationships to build and I wanted to be sustainable and not be a burden to anyone,” Reyes said. “In the beginning, it was super hard because you have to check that box you’re a felon and I was being let go from jobs once they found out.”
Kane County Sheriff Ron Hain said Challenge II Change will take ownership of the Aurora property on Monday and plans to spend the first few months rehabbing the home before housing people there in the early spring.
Hain said the sheriff’s office will help with renovations and the costs to ensure the house is staffed 24/7.
“A lot of people are going back to their parents or a loved one’s house after they are released (from prison) and only receiving a limited amount of help,” Hain said of the need for the program.
Residents at the home will also continue to have access to the same services they had inside jail, such as job training and addiction recovery treatment.
The program will begin around six months prior to a person’s release from jail to ensure they leave with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, medical benefits and an ID. Reyes said they will help connect people with virtual interviews so they can leave jail with a job.
“They (will) have etiquette classes because we want them to be able to come out and have conversations and get you up to date because when I came home, I was so lost,” Reyes said.
Reyes said many people were doubtful the group would receive the grant but he said the Illinois Housing Development Authority “loved the approach we were taking to reintegrate men back into their communities. They said we had the least experience but the most knowledge of what it would take to have the best reintegration.”
Hain said in the future, he would like to help open another transitional living house at another site in Kane County.
