By Russell Nichols 

In wildfire country, every home needs a buffer zone: a landscaped perimeter created to keep blazes from encroaching on neighborhoods.

“It’s called defensible space,” says 28-year-old Louie Laporte.

He would know. For the past few months, he’s been making defensible space with the CAL FIRE Academy. Waking up at 5:30 a.m., he joins the fire team to clear brush around residences from Wheatland to Grass Valley and beyond. The team has the tools: McLeod rakes, Rhinos, leaf blowers, weed eaters. And Laporte has the drive: After being incarcerated in 2021, he was released last June in search of a steady job to support his family.

Support is a key word here. Without it, Laporte might be struggling a lot more. Soon after his release, he received a phone call from Michelle Sotelo, a case manager at the Clover Agency, who connected him with the CAL FIRE Academy chief. Her firm manages Pathway to Careers, a program that in March collaborated with the nonprofit organization Reintegration Academy to develop curricula that helps formerly incarcerated individuals gain life skills, education and access to employment.

“For a lot of them, it’s a lot of different things they need support with,” Sotelo says. “I start with the basics. ‘Do you have an ID? Because we can’t work if we don’t have an ID.’ All the way to, ‘What are your skills? Experience your dream, so we can figure out a career for you.’”

This year, Reintegration Academy has two 8-week cohorts at Sacramento State and UC Davis from mid March to early May. For many of the program’s formerly incarcerated participants, this will be their first time on a college campus, giving them exposure to college life and opportunities they might not know about. They receive a laptop, a $200 stipend and weekly dinners. The program includes a job fair at Sac State on May 7, connecting participants with second-chance employers. There will be a graduation ceremony for the cohorts on May 9. 

Helping hands

The strategic collaboration between the program’s partners makes sense. Pathway to Careers introduces undeserved adults to different industries and tailors curricula to prepare them for sustainable employment. As part of the Prison Education Project, Reintegration Academy helps individuals coming out of correctional facilities build skills (such as resume writing and job interviewing) they need to find work and stay out of the system.

“For the most part, people want to succeed, but there are a lot of barriers in the way. That’s just the reality,” says Michael Love, outreach coordinator for Project Rebound, a program that supports students who were formerly incarcerated and is hosting the Reintegration Academy’s cohort at Sac State. “We have to teach them how to navigate those barriers, keep their heads up and push forward.”

As someone who has been incarcerated before, Love understands the struggles: education, employment, housing, food insecurity, financial and emotional wellness — basic needs many take for granted. Some individuals have been away for five years, others for 30 or 40. That time takes an unimaginable toll on self-worth, so reintegration demands an “all hands on deck approach,” according to Love.

“If we can help just one individual realize their self-efficacy and raise their self-esteem,” he says, “it will automatically impact their children, their partners and uplift the entire community.”

For the past year, Sotelo has been a key part of this support network, driven by a singular belief: “Every single person on the face of the Earth,” she says, “is one split decision away from their life changing.”

Her dedication is deep-rooted. As the oldest of six kids, she took on responsibilities early, cooking meals by age 7 and helping hold the household together. Having been incarcerated herself, she also understands the obstacles. Through her case manager role at the agency, she helps those at risk of eviction. She gives rides and buys clothes and follows up with referrals. She has real conversations about substance abuse, mental health issues, knowing your rights and communicating in a healthy way. Most importantly, she answers the calls.

There is no hotline. These days, most referrals come through community partners, parole or probation departments, she says. And Sotelo takes calls from all kinds of people struggling in the region, from formerly incarcerated individuals and foster youth to disconnected young adults and people with low incomes.   

One woman called her at 11 p.m., stranded on the side of the road with no one to help her tow her car. Another young man called her after coming home from the Sacramento County Youth Detention Facility.

“He said, ‘You’re my second call after my grandma,’” Sotelo says. “So I went and met him. I took him to Texas Roadhouse. He told me he’d never had a steak before.”

Sometimes, she says, taking someone to a nice restaurant or a place they’ve never seen can shift the way they see themselves. But at its core, trust is built by simply showing up consistently.

“I always tell the individuals I work with, ‘Let me hold your hand,’” Sotelo says. “‘Let me guide you. Let me take you where we need to go. And I’m going to slowly let go so you can go on your own. But you can always reach back out and grab my hand again. Because I’m always here.”

Through the fire

Before connecting with Pathway to Careers, Laporte spent three months looking for a job. He finally landed a warehouse gig, but it lasted less than five months. He knew he needed to try something different.

Then he remembered the fire camp program he’d gone through in prison. (It was only open to people with certain offenses and he met the criteria.) With that experience in his back pocket, Laporte started calling around. That’s when Sotelo reached out.

“Out the blue, Michelle called me and introduced herself,” Laporte says. “I needed a certain type of boots, a belt, pants. I didn’t have the money for it. I couldn’t even get a bank account when I got out because my identity was stolen. She was able to help with that.”

The fire chief, he says, has also been incarcerated and understands what it takes to rebound and reintegrate. Some instructors have been through the system too. Sometimes, Laporte adds, they’ll pay for hotels or buy dinner.

“Most likely, the people who are going to help you the most are the people who got out of prison and turned their lives around,” Laporte says. “They put the idea in my mind to not give up.”

Reintegration Academy also opened his eyes to education, the possibility of enrolling in a junior college after earning his diploma. But for now, the biggest challenge is housing. He’s been working to get his own place, but his employment situation is up in the air. 

Laporte graduated from the CAL FIRE Academy in April, and is looking for something stable to stay productive.

“I’m trying to stay on the right path,” he says. “I always feel like, when I go outside, any wrong thing I do, I’m going to end up in a bad situation with the law. Being that I have a history, it’s not going to go too good. It’s about having the discipline to stay on the right line.”

This story is part of the Solving Sacramento journalism collaborative. Our partners include California Groundbreakers, Capital Public Radio, Outword, Russian America Media, Sacramento Business Journal, Sacramento News & Review, Sacramento Observer and Univision 19. Support stories like these here, and sign up for our monthly newsletter.