Building Capacity in Community

About civic engagement

Civic Engagement is the way people participate in the life of their community, planning to improve it, helping to maintain it, and organizing to assist neighbors in need.

Civic engagement can take many forms, from volunteering to clean parks, serving food at soup kitchens and food pantries, organizing clothing drives for homeless or impoverished people, or serving on local planning boards.  Witness is committed to taking an active part in the civic life of New York City, where we are based. We work with elected officials to advocate for policies and programs that will create a more equitable and humane city. We are focused especially on advocating for policies that reduce incarceration and increase resources, services and support for people leaving confinement and reentering our communities.  Examples can range from getting a park, arranging for community disasters, or an emergency response for a disaster, schools, health and safety issues.

The Witness 2020 Census Initiative aims to encourage incarcerated, formerly incarcerated, and directly impacted populations — the hard to count — in New York City, to participate in the 2020 Census.

Witness conducts outreach for the census in partnership with formerly incarcerated-led, community and faith-based organizations. As trusted messengers, we are in a strong position to engage these populations, who generally distrust government agencies and employees, and are often wary of sharing information with them.

Our populations live primarily in low income communities, who often miss out on funding if they don’t fill out the census.

Many people released from prisons and jails are homeless and penniless, lacking family support and meaningful opportunities. The spread of Covid-19 has complicated this already difficult situation, making it even more challenging. While it has been imperative to release vulnerable people from dangerous conditions as quickly as possible, formerly incarcerated people are entering an environment where jobs and opportunities, already limited under normal circumstances, are rapidly disappearing, many food pantries are closing and health resources are overburdened. 

Most people are also released into working class or struggling communities of color that are increasingly bearing the brunt of the virus, with more than twice the number of deaths as white neighborhoods. These challenges may be especially acute for formerly incarcerated women, who often have children and financial burdens, and LGBTQ+ people, who may be unable to draw on families for support. 

There is an urgent need for organizations with deep experience working with formerly incarcerated people to step into this crisis situation to provide emergency food support. Witness has received Covid-19 funding and we are distributing $100 food gift cards.