- Just ahead on "Black Issues Forum".

Bouncing back from life's hardships can prove to be an overwhelming feat.

For organizations like "Beauty 180" and Home Transitional Network assist those navigating life after abuse, job loss, incarceration and so much more.

We'll talk about it, stay with us.

[upbeat music] - [Narrator] Black Issues Forum is a production of PBS North Carolina.

With support from the Z Smith Reynolds Foundation.

Quality Public Television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.

[upbeat music] - Welcome to Black Issues Forum.

I'm Kenia Thompson with a mission to support women in transition, specifically the disenfranchised due to circumstances of abuse and incarceration, "Beauty 180", a Triangle nonprofit, provides personal development, beauty services, professional and career development, as well as financial tools to help women improve their career and lifestyle opportunities.

Today we have with us the founder of Beauty 180 Kimberly Winborne, and she's here to share why this work is important and its impact on local community.

Welcome to the show, Kimberly.

- Thank you for having me.

- Of course.

I love the name Beauty 180, right?

When we think about transformation, sometimes people use the term making a 360, but really it's about, 'cause that would put us back to where we were.

So tell us about the story behind the creation of Beauty 180, the name, and why you felt like it was necessary to have in community.

- Absolutely, so Beauty 180 actually started years and years ago.

I was doing purple parties in order to raise money for organizations that support victims of domestic violence.

And just over time, doing the work developed into my own nonprofit based on mentorship and others telling me that I should do my own because of the work that I was doing and what I was seeing out, when you serve, you get to see a whole lot.

And what I was seeing is that a lot of women are dealing with these different traumatic scenarios, domestic violence, coming out of prison and they need so many ways of support, so many methods of support.

But we're not receiving that all the time.

And I began to get calls just from doing the service, I began to get calls asking for support in various areas because they knew that I would actually boots to the ground, do the work.

- Yeah.

- And so that developed into the nonprofit.

And the name Beauty 180 actually came from, I love math.

I don't have a degree in math, but I love math.

And so angles mean a lot to me.

You do hear 360 as you said, a lot.

But when you go around a circle 180 degrees, you can actually move forward.

And we are about renewed mindset, creating new opportunities so we can move forward together.

And so we support women who are coming out of prison, women who are coming out of domestic violence situations, all those, also women who are coming out of financial abusive marriages and don't even realize that they're disenfranchised.

- Yeah.

- And also homelessness.

- Yeah, when you talk about all of those instances that women can be impacted with, domestic abuse, financial abuse, incarceration, what statistically does that look like for our Black community?

And let's just specifically talk about women.

'Cause that's primarily who your audience is, correct?

- Yes, so when it comes to domestic violence, you have about in North Carolina alone, the numbers are about one in two women that are being abused.

Unfortunately, our demographic, the African-American community, doesn't always report it as much.

So I just think about the percentages of those numbers.

If there's one in two, then it's probably really like one to one or one to one and a half.

And so the numbers are staggering.

The African-American community is plagued with this particular instance of domestic violence.

And then when it comes to coming out of prison I don't know the exact percentages but I do know that the readmittance rate is very high.

And so one of the things that we wanted to do is create an opportunity for women to be able to come out and have other opportunities outside of the ones that seem to be present currently, to become entrepreneurs.

- Yeah.

- To get career and professional development.

What many of the organizations I was working with previously were doing work was great work but needing to be able to get clothes and hair services and things like that to be able to be an entrepreneur for instance, those services were lacking.

And so that's where we stepped in and began to say, how can we create a program where between three and six months, that's that 180.

- Yeah.

- They can be moving forward towards success.

- Yeah, and I think one thing that we had a little conversation last night, one thing that we kind of came to the conclusion of what you already know 'cause the work that you do, but there isn't a face to this.

Right, there isn't a certain look to this.

And so we may not realize, I mean, you said one in two women and that's a lot.

That's the woman that we work with.

That's the woman that we see at the grocery store.

Yeah, and so, it's just blows my mind to think about, it's not a standard picture.

It's not a look.

And so do you find that women have a hard time, like you said, in the black community specifically, we don't talk about it.

We may not admit to it, we may not seek help.

And so how do you get tools to women who need to get back on their feet but may not be readily available to ask for that assistance?

- Well, one of the things that we do is consistently talk about it.

I think sometimes not talking about a thing actually feeds the problem.

And so we actually talk about it, sometimes as a financial coach, you have had me on here before in that light, as a financial coach many people don't even understand that they're in a scenario of financial abuse.

It's just something that they just feel like that's how it's supposed to be.

But when they actually get the information through workshops, sometimes social media posts, email marketing, whatever, then it becomes, an awareness awakens them.

And then once you know better, hopefully you do better.

Yeah, and so we just consistently try to inform and educate, providing workshops, free workshops as well as going in.

And I go in a lot and do pro bono services in order to educate.

And that really helps people to become even more aware and to feel like they have a safe space.

- Yeah, I know, that's great.

And then I also want to just identify that, you know, we're talking about domestic and financial abuse but there's so many different ways to be abused.

- Yes.

- We've got food insecurity, using children against you.

I don't know if there are others that you'd like to share, but there's so many other things that we don't consider abuse, but indeed it is.

- Absolutely, emotional abuse is a big one.

You know, these terms go around now, like gaslighting and, you know, narcissism and things like that.

But, you know, these are definitely forms of abuses, of abuse rather, that people don't recognize.

And I mentioned financial abuse because that's actually one of the silent ones that many people don't recognize.

Of course, physical abuse.

You can physically see that, you can physically feel that.

But those are the main ones which lead to mental health issues and so many other issues that actually sometimes lead to incarceration and other issues that we're addressing today.

- Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about incarceration and taking a look at the way our laws are set up.

- Yeah.

- You know, there are a lot of hoops that people have to jump through to prove themselves innocent in situations like this.

Sometimes women take on the blame to not further anger their abuser.

How do those laws integrate into these hardships and does it make it harder to overcome them?

I believe that there is a lot of support.

So there are laws that are being changed every day and challenged every day, but, unfortunately, there are still some laws that do not 100% protect the victim.

However, a lot of times too, as you just mentioned, the victim does not advocate for themselves because of that fear.

And so having lawyers and others in the court system that give them that safety is what I've found, like sort of like a collaboration or partnership with certain organizations that are fighting for these victims to say, "Hey, you have a safe place here."

Then that's usually the organizations that we try to send them to and/or work with.

And I'm looking for more like, all of the time because sometimes resources dry up.

And unfortunately Covid was one of those experiences in which I feel like when I came back on the other side of that, a lot of the resources that I previously had, had dried up and I hear a lot of people say that.

- Yeah.

- So yeah, those are the things that can help them to feel like even though the law may feel like it doesn't work for them, it's that safe space that helps them to know that they can go and have an advocate to move forward.

Yeah, and you know, reentry is one of the areas that we've talked about and touched on, but you know, that's part of the service work that Beauty 180 does.

And we mainly see men in the news who face potential recidivism and reentry concerns but women face the same concerns.

- Yeah.

- Talk to us about what you've seen and how it impacts women specifically.

- Well, in so many ways, you know, we talked about homelessness, so sometimes coming out, you may not have the family support that you thought you would have, and so that could lead to homelessness because there is a lack of shelters oftentimes for them.

Mental health issues, you know, and needing to get that mental health support.

That is an issue as well.

So many when it comes to career, you know, when you have a record, and I think many of us realize and know this.

When you have a record, sometimes that becomes a issue with getting a job.

So there's so many different issues.

When you have a Black woman, there's that intersectionality of racism and sexism that's plaguing America already, and then you add a felony charge or, you know, that then it becomes even tougher, so.

- No, I can imagine.

Before we end our time here together one-on-one I wanna talk about a beautiful component that you have of Beauty 180, and that's involving young girls and kids.

- Thank you.

- So talk to us about the work you do with getting children aware of some of the work that you do.

- Yeah, well, we want to develop bold, confident young ladies who will become bold, confident women to hopefully avoid scenarios in which they are abused and victimized in any capacity.

And so we do etiquette and trainings and workshops, we do youth entrepreneurship development, and I really love those parts of our programming because, like you said, we can together do something to impact change.

And starting with the girls is one of the key components of Beauty 180, so that we can overcome some of these disenfranchised scenarios.

- Yeah, well, Kimberly, as we wrap up, share with our audience how they can potentially get in touch or volunteer.

Is there a website you'd like to share?

- Absolutely, it's www.beauty, B-E-A-U-T-Y, 180inc.org, And then on all social media @beauty180inc.

- Wonderful, Kimberly Winborne, thank you so much for being here, sharing the work that you do.

- Thank you.

- And we wish you all the best.

So we move on to talk one-on-one with Corey Purdie.

17 years of working in prison, reentry efforts, volunteering in prison, and once employed by the prison system, Corey knows exactly what's needed for a successful reentry into society because he himself was in prison.

It's been 20 years since his release and he's dedicated his life to this cause.

And so we welcome Corey Purdie to the show, Consultant at Home Transitional Network.

Corey, you've been in this space for a fairly long time and I'd love for you to just take a moment, share with us your experience and the journey that led to the work that you're doing today.

- So I was, at the age of 17 I was incarcerated.

That was 1995.

I returned home in 2003.

Upon returning home, it was, you know, it was different than it is now.

Reentry, recidivism, those words weren't as popular.

But I met a pastor and that pastor named Jeff Smith.

He kind of took me upon his wing and took me back inside the prison actually in 2006 as a volunteer with a program called One Day With God.

From there I kind of found, you know, purpose, you know, in everything I went through.

But with that being said, of course, employment was a barrier, housing was a barrier and all these barriers that we face as was mentioned earlier.

But the thing about it is that I had to find a sense of purpose.

And finding that sense of purpose founded in realizing that it's other people that was inside that was going to transition, that were experiencing the same things that I experienced, so.

- In 2007, we open a car wash. At that car wash, we started hiring individuals that was prior incarcerated, I mean formerly incarcerated.

From there, we found out that there was other issues that laid at bay when asking someone to come into work.

- Uh-hm.

So when you talk about some of these barriers, right, we understand that it can be discouraging.

And so, we find that people are going back into the system because it may be easier to re-offend or to go back to what is almost comfortable and less challenging.

Talk about the work you do around helping men like yourself stay out of trouble and to find positive avenues even pass the barriers.

- The component about grace, so I think, you know, our foundation is only grace is understanding.

It's when we spoke about reentry and we speak about former incarcerated, sometime we put, we segment and when really we talk about people And we talk about people, we talk about, we all deal with the same issues, no matter if you're formerly incarcerated or not.

But I think the component that most important that we found is that when we look at people as people, then we address the concerns that's at bay.

When we talk about homelessness, everybody understands what it feels like to be without housing because someone, whether you're in the transition of moving, whether you're in transition from incarceration, we have faced that situation.

But the component is that understanding the level of grace is understanding that how can we all work together in a community.

Because I've ran I had nonprofit for years.

I ran business for years.

And sometimes, that's why we kind of transitioned from the nonprofit space into, we'll speak about in a second, Home Transitional Network, is that because it's, we all, for some nonprofits, for businesses, we all deal with this population when this issue when you talk about reentry.

And we have to learn how to work together and utilize the different resources in order to make everything work for all involved.

- Yeah.

So, let's talk about Home Transitional Network.

You guys have just opened a 27,000 square foot facility in Fairmont, North Carolina developing therapeutic communities.

Talk to us about what therapeutic communities look like and what is the plan for this development.

- So originally, we were looking at urban, in city communities and we realized that real estate is so expensive in those areas.

So, we started to look towards rural communities.

Right now, we're in Fairmont.

And so a therapeutic community, we deal with small footprint housing, compact housing, tiny houses is what we built in our facility in Fairmont.

But allowing 'em to have, allowing those spaces to accommodate, I'm sorry to take a land.

Build those tiny homes, those units on the land, but then not only just put one population within those communities.

Because sometime we think about reentry, we want to bring individuals out and we wanna put them all in the same space.

But we understand that just because a person has a prior history doesn't mean that that person has the same experience.

So with the therapeutic communities, we try to find out what's best.

And we have individuals that work on establishing what works best for that community and making sure all the resources are in that community that address the need.

And when we say, just like the young lady was saying earlier, so many nonprofits, so many organizations so many great work that's been done out here in the communities now.

It's about communicating and coming together and understanding that okay what's needed within this community.

And so with these therapeutic communities that we're right now we're working in Fairmont, North Carolina and we're working in a couple other rural areas, working with the local municipalities in order to establish those properties and to develop these communities.

And like it's a great, it's a large network of resource providers across the state.

As Eli was saying earlier it's so many nonprofits, so many organizations.

And we connect with those organization and formalize what's needed within that community.

- And that's great 'cause you know, as we've mentioned before, housing rejection for those that are formerly incarcerated is a huge problem.

So I'd love to hear, you know, why are some of those barriers in existence and then what solutions are being put in place.

Kind of like what Kimberly and I talked about, systemic issues, laws, that we should be aware of that make things more difficult for this population.

- It goes back to policy.

I'll just give you a real example.

I've been out 2003.

2003, I came home 4th of July.

2003, 2000, 2003, I'm sorry, 4th of July, 2023, I actually was faced with the same issue that I faced when I came home.

We was building a house and in the timeframe of building a house, we had to rent an apartment.

While going to rent an apartment, they did a background check.

And within my background check, they found out that I had a conviction 30 years ago.

That conviction rejected my application.

So, that goes to policy.

Understanding that each one of these apartment complexes or just housing policy and all is that's where everything leads back to addressing the policy that sets the barriers in place when person is trying to reenter and rebuild families.

As you were speaking earlier with young lady about families, how many families are affected by just that rejection letter or rejection for a job, but mainly about housing.

Because that's the component where families come together and unify, and then able to carry out and do other things in life.

But when you put a barrier against housing and when a person is a, you know you have like my wife, she's a physician.

And now me as a husband is displaced and I have a daughter.

And so with that situation, now imagine people that don't have the resources that we had and how many people are being rejected just because of certain policy that's in place.

So, that's an area that we are working on with North Carolina Justice Center Legal Aid and some national organizations about addressing policies at these different, you know, living facilities that have policies in place that, you know, that create barriers for formerly incarcerated people.

- Yeah.

So if someone's watching and they get an email similar to the one that you've received and you obviously are connected, you've got resources, you are working in this space, but that can be discouraging for someone who just doesn't know.

What is one of the first steps that they should take in advocating for themselves to gain housing even after a 20, 30-year stint out of prison?

- The first thing is that you have an appeal process.

So once you rejected, you can appeal that process.

The second step after if you get rejected, after the appeal, the [indistinct] North Carolina, I'm sorry.

- United States HUD department has now passed policy that housing, that anyone receiving HUD funds cannot discriminate against anybody just because they have a conviction, on that basis alone.

So the first thing, what I recommend is first, you know, put your appeal in and contact the North Carolina Justice Center or Legal Aid to get assistance to move forward with the next steps.

And then, just, like my situation, with just the communication between the North Carolina Legal Aid attorneys and the attorneys for the apartment complex, they was able to get my applications turned around so that I can move in with my family.

And so that's, you know, and that leads back to what we're doing in Fairmont in our manufacture facility, is that it also also goes back to ownership.

We have to educate and encourage people in ownership and not just when they, after they get out, but prior to release, 'cause everyone is coming home that have a release date inside, whether it's male or female, but how to start educating them about ownership prior to release, because no matter, each apartment complex has its own policy.

And no matter if I'm approved for this one, when I go apply for the next one, if it ever come, I have to face a policy at that apartment complex.

So moving and educating towards ownership as we fight for and advocate for policy change is very important.

- So when we talk about recidivism, again with, you know, with barriers similar to this, again, people find themselves facing additional life-altering decisions.

What is the recidivism rate among Black men and women?

Again, I don't know that we talk about women as much in this space, and is there a way to decrease it outside of the work that you're doing?

- The last rate I looked at between 50 and 60% of Black individuals, male and female, return back incarceration.

And as the young lady spoke earlier, a lot of because of, you know, family not having the adequate return platform in place for his family and structure and financial structure, so that's a lot of what we see of a lot of recidivism right there.

But going back to work, I mean, if I remember, if you could restate the end of that question, but you asked me after the-- - How do we decrease it?

So when we, you know, I know that you're doing some work around that, but I think, and that brings me to my next question about, you know, the general population plays a large role in how reentry is successful or not based on how we treat people.

We can't always see that someone's been in prison, right?

But a lot of times when we learn about someone's history or their background, we start to treat people differently based off of internal biases that we hold.

So how do we make a change?

How does society change and impact the recidivism rate and how do we play a role of success in reentry?

- There we go.

So we talk about grace, and that's where it's looking at people as people.

Like I said, when I entered and I put in an application, the person saw me for who I was that day, but when they did the background check, then they saw me for who I was 30 years ago.

And that's how we see people in general, as we walking down the street and we're dealing with people in, you know, whatever atmosphere we in, and then, but it comes to, about grace, because no matter, if I looked at this camera or I looked at the mirror, I'm looking in, I'm looking back at issues that I have within myself, and we all have some type of issue, some type of hurdle, but we understand when understanding that holistically, when we're looking at that person that you may judge based off their past, may be a person that may carry you through that day.

Even in my current situation, when I was in that transition, I was walking down the street and I met a gentleman that was unhoused and he's been unhoused and living on the streets for many years, but the words that he was able to share with me and just about life principles was just so impactful for my day.

But sometimes, we look at people based off their situation and judge them just because the circumstance they're in, but not realizing that, you know, we all have jewels.

That one person, the young man I was talking to, he had a doctorate degree.

So he wasn't always in that situation.

And it only take one instant, one circumstance for any one of us to be in a certain situation and so that's what I've learned after 20 years, this whole experience been also humbling to myself, And just, and realized that, you know, we all just one step away.

- Thank you so much, Corey.

Thank you for being honest and transparent with your journey.

And I'm fairly sure that there are many men and women who are grateful for the work that you do.

So we encourage you to go forth and continue doing that work.

Corey Purdie, thank you so much.

- Appreciate you.

- We invite you to engage with us on Instagram using the hashtag, BlackIssuesForum.

You can also find our full episodes on pbsnc.org/blackissuesforum and on the PBS video app.

Thanks for watching.

I'm Kenia Thompson.

I'll see you next time.

[upbeat music] ♪ - [Narrator] Black Issues Forum is a production of PBS North Carolina, with support from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation.

Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.