Graduate School
Harvard Kennedy School

Undergraduate School
University of Michigan

Mentor
Dan Kennedy, Northeastern University School of Journalism and Rappaport Institute Advisory Board Member

Agency
City of Boston, Office of Returning Citizens

Supervisor
Kevin Sibley, Executive Director

Description of Fellowship
Alexis worked with the City of Boston’s Office of Returning Citizens. The COVID-19 pandemic prompted the rapid release of inmates, and the process revealed serious gaps that are critical for a successful reentry, including, non-shelter housing options, continuity of health care services, and obtaining identity documents to name a few. In Boston, the limited options of finding a safe and stable place to land on the first night out places a hardship on returning citizens during one of the most vulnerable and critical times of their reintegration – immediately upon release. To help solve this problem for not only the pandemic, but also in the long-term Alexis developed an implementation plan for a temporary transitional housing program for returning citizens in the City of Boston. She also wrote an advocacy piece encouraging state agencies to ensure parolees left a correctional facility with a MassID. Lastly, she inputted data about gender and zip codes to understand the demographics of people the office served and where people most often returned to post-incarceration.