The house is in a quiet, suburban neighborhood, close to where Madison meets Fitchburg. Dogs stop to investigate the piles of leaves on the curbs, parents help their toddlers learn to walk over the sidewalk cracks. It’s exactly the type of place EX-incarcerated People Organizing had in mind when the group began its search: A soft place for formerly incarcerated women to land.
It’s part of the Sisterhood Alliance for Freedom and Equality Housing Network, an international system of re-entry homes and programming for women leaving incarceration. Under Madison zoning rules, up to five women at a time can stay in the EXPO SAFE Home for as long as two years while they reacclimate to life outside of the cell blocks. Incarcerated women looking ahead at release can apply for residency through EXPO, and staffers will select applicants based on who they believe will be the best fit.
This downstairs living room will be the heart of Madison’s new home for formerly incarcerated women, organizer Marianne Oleson said, where residents can share stories, forge friendships and develop a sense of family.
The home is the first of its kind in Wisconsin. Since January, SAFE has been working with EXPO to make it a reality. With the home’s first resident moving in by the end of November, the sort of freedom EXPO advocates is becoming a reality.
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When EXPO operations director Marianne Oleson was released from prison, she didn’t feel free. A lack of places to turn to, people to support her and opportunities to start fresh meshed with traumas she’d endured during her seven years behind bars to trap her in a sense of isolation long after she’d re-entered her community.
“Incarceration reduces an individual to nothing more than the choices they regret,” Oleson said. “When you leave and you feel so unworthy, it’s hard to put into words how truly difficult that is.”
Oleson was engulfed in this struggle when she came across EXPO, the organization she said “saved her.” Now, she’s trying to save other formerly incarcerated women.
“This is where family will be born,” Marianne Oleson said of the home’s downstairs living room, something prison time often deprives inmates of.
She points to a number of factors that complicate female inmates’ return from incarceration. Motherhood is a big factor: 62% of incarcerated women are mothers of minor children, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. Pre-existing trauma also interferes with successful reintegration, especially when women return from incarceration to unsafe living situations. The National Online Resource Center for Violence Against Women reports that more than 60% of incarcerated women or girls report having experienced physical or sexual abuse as children. More than 70% of incarcerated women or girls report intimate partner violence in adulthood.
“These women need to hear they matter, they’re worthwhile, they’re loved and they belong,” she said.
EXPO’s new SAFE House is the first of its kind in Wisconsin, part of an international network of homes for formerly incarcerated women to get reacclimated to their communities.
While trauma isn’t unique to female inmates, inequities in re-entry programming are. Historically, re-entry programs for formerly incarcerated people have been tailored to men, the Prison Policy Initiative reports, without sufficient consideration for the specific needs of formerly incarcerated women.
Oleson and her fellow EXPO staffers have worked for the past year to ensure that the home can address the needs of its residents.
In two living rooms, the women can share family time, watch television, have long talks and welcome visitors. The downstairs living room, Oleson says, is the “heart of the home,” where residents will have “sister circles,” gatherings where they can share their thoughts, experiences and struggles. Motivational phrases are framed throughout the home, “Art before dishes,” reads one in the kitchen; “It is possible” sits on top of a nightstand.
Academic and professional support
Professors from UW-Madison have offered to provide support for residents seeking entry into academic programs or to earn certificates. Employees in Fitchburg’s Human Resources department have committed themselves to helping residents build resumes, work on interview skills and find success in the workforce, including a job fair in which employers can only register if they will hire former inmates. For mothers in the house, parenting classes and family counseling will be available.
Toiletries and other basic necessities sit at the ready on each of the five beds in the new SAFE House. While programming and resources for things like child care, education and career finding will be available to residents, Marianne Oleson said the first month of each resident’s stay will likely be reserved for “assessing and understanding what’s next.”
Twenty-five years ago, Susan Burton was struggling to reacclimate to her life in Los Angeles after being released from prison, starting A New Way of Life Re-entry Project from her own home for women like herself. In 2018, she launched the SAFE network, inspired by the pleas of incarcerated women she spoke to while touring prisons after writing her book “Becoming Ms. Burton.”
“All the women were standing up saying, ‘Please come here and open a house because we have nowhere to go,’” she recalled. “It was heartbreaking for me to see it.”
The first SAFE network house was built the next year.
“I feel very thankful and grateful that I can use my life to transform other lives,” said Burton. “I’m very, very excited about creating safety for these communities.”
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