Saskatoon program helps former inmates rebuild lives and clean up community

An initiative in Saskatoon is helping people who've had trouble with the law find work.

The Saskatoon Wellbeing Employment Enterprise Program (SWEEP) works in partnership with the city and is operated by Quint Development Corporation, a community non-profit.

The program provides employment opportunities for people leaving incarceration or who may face significant barriers to entering the workforce.

Members of the program work in the community on tasks like garbage and needle collection, biological waste removal and graffiti clean-up.

"We look to mobilize our team, which is composed mostly of folks who have at some point in time been connected to [the] justice [system], and focus their efforts on healing the community in a variety of different ways," program manager Aaron Timoshyk said in an interview.

Timoshyk said the program is for people struggling to find or keep a job, or experiencing discrimination.

"If we can help those folks find an avenue out of their situation and then use them in a positive way in the community, it could just have an amplified effect," Timoshyk said.

Members also collect scrap metal, appliances, tires, mattresses and other items, which they sort to streamline waste management before it goes to the landfill.

"The nature of their offences in the past or some of their current struggles makes it easy to lose hope," Timoshyk said. "Once they realize they have a safe place here, you genuinely start to see people start to dream.

"Maybe I can get a house, maybe I can save up for a car. Maybe I'm interested in the trades. I think what it allowed some people to do is imagine a future for themselves." 

SWEEP crew members also receive life-skills training and wraparound support, including assistance with housing, family reconnection and navigating parole, according to a news release. 

Michaela De Curtis is the executive director at CoSA Ottawa, a program that helps sexual offenders reintegrate into the community. She said restorative justice is more effective.

"It's not the most widely used option, but restorative justice is really about meeting the needs of everybody. That includes the victim, the community, and the person who has offended for our program," she said. 

She said CoSA focuses on providing a non-judgmental environment with wrap-around support, while working with other community organizations to make sure all the needs of the individuals in the program are met.