The R.E.V. is ready to provide reentry support services on the go

The Rev. Michelle Anne Simmons, founder and CEO of the women’s reentry program Why Not Prosper, cut the ribbon Saturday on the social service office of the future: a converted recreational vehicle that is now a mobile resource center for people who have been released from prison.

Simmons officially launched the R.E.V., or Rolling Engagement Van, before an enthusiastic crowd of supporters and staffers, calling it a “vessel of hope bringing resources directly to those in need.”

The R.E.V. will bring services geared to the needs of returning citizens including legal support, trauma care, food and basic-need items, bus passes, and health services. They are many of the same services Why Not Prosper provides from its brick-and-mortar office at 717 E. Chelten Ave. in Germantown.

“We’ve got to go to the people,” State Sen. Art Haywood, a Democrat representing parts of Philadelphia and Montgomery Counties, said during the afternoon ribbon-cutting ceremony. “We can’t always expect people to come to us. We need to do something different. All of us in state and local government have to go to the people.”

The R.E.V. will be comanaged by Why Not Prosper and the Community Advisory Committee (CAC) of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety + Justice Challenge (SJC), a group of volunteers who advise the city on its criminal justice reform policies in an effort to reduce the jail population.

For now the R.E.V., which has already been out on a few trial runs, will head into the community two or three times a week using Why Not Prosper’s Sisters with a Goal members to staff it. Simmons is also looking to increase the services available by adding community partners.

“We will go into the communities and provide access that is not typically given and remove barriers,” said CAC chair Charlotte Brickhouse. The SJC provided the grant for the vehicle which Simmons estimated at close to $100,000. The R.E.V. will provide services for all genders.

“Community-based mobile health and social services models like the Rolling Engagement Van are an emerging best practice both locally and across the country that the City is very proud of,” Kurt August, executive director of the Office of Criminal Justice, said in a statement.

Since launching Why Not Prosper 23 years ago, Simmons has helped more than 1,700 women transition from prison back into their communities. She has also seen the need for her services escalate.

The female incarceration rate has grown by 475% since 1980, twice as high as men’s, making women the fastest growing segment of the incarcerated population, according to the Sentencing Project.

“We can’t incarcerate our way out of the problem,” said Keisha N. Hudson, chief defender at the Defender Association of Philadelphia. “We represented over 30,000 people last year. They are human beings with complex complicated lives.”

Hudson also announced that Simmons would be the Defender Association of Philadelphia’s community awardee at its 90th-anniversary gala in April. “It is our first-ever community partner award.”

Simmons designed Why Not Prosper to be the program she wished she had when she exited prison for felony convictions for possession, prostitution, and receiving stolen property, all stemming from substance abuse. However, attempting to rebuild her life while staying sober and connecting with her two children was almost impossible, she said.

» READ MORE: ‘It’s a new day for the formerly incarcerated’: Why Not Prosper opens a center in Harrisburg

“Reentry is brutal,” she once explained. “Philadelphia has a reentry focus but if we don’t hold their hands, the ladies will give up on themselves.”

Update: This story has been corrected to reflect that the Community Advisory Committee and not Council is the correct name of the organization.