Bay Area Freedom Collective (BAFC) is a grassroots reentry support community and mutual aid network organized by and for formerly incarcerated people. Our mission is to ensure that community members returning from prison are connected to the resources and support they need to be safe, healthy, and empowered to rebuild their lives. BAFC is a 501(c)3 registered non-profit organization that provides support to formerly incarcerated men and women released from prison and jails in California and raises awareness about the impact of incarceration on our communities.
About
Mission
To ensure that community members returning from prison are connected to the resources and support they need to be safe, healthy, and empowered to rebuild their lives.
Vision
Core Values
We envision our collective as a shared “community garden” where all members are welcome to contribute, cultivate, and grow things together.
Mutual care, Transparency, Empowerment & agency, Solidarity, not charity, and Standing up for justice.
BAFC is a grassroots reentry support community and mutual aid network organized by and for formerly incarcerated people.
Simon Liu, the Co-founder, and Director of BAFC, went to prison at the age of 16 charged as an adult for a crime he didn't commit. Simon received a full pardon from Gov Newsom.
When the COVID pandemic began in early 2020, it exacerbated an issue that Simon and many people in his community have experienced first hand: a major gap in support, between state and private institutions, for people coming home from prison. Imagine being sentenced to life in prison as a teenager, serving 20+ years, being found suitable for parole in your 40s, and being dropped off outside the prison gate with $250 and no other support to secure housing and employment. That exact scenario is happening to thousands of people in California every year.
Simon, Jessica, a team of system-impacted community members, and coworkers in the tech community decided that we would help fill that gap, and we started the Bay Area Freedom Collective. Our first program centered on day-one support for people released from prison. This included picking them up on release at the prison gate in a COVID-safe way, giving them a backpack with day-one essentials and a cellphone, assisting with navigating public transportation, and assisting with securing vital documents like a driver's license.
As our network grew, we expanded our support to include helping people prep for interviews, secure jobs, and find housing. While doing this work, the biggest feedback we received was how difficult it was for many people with records to get safe, stable housing. There was a deficit of beds in appropriate state-supplied transitional housing, and most people didn’t have the income to qualify for housing on the public market. We decided to take the leap to having our own housing, and in October of 2020, Jessica brought the reentry House in Castro Valley to anchor our end-to-end support system for people getting out of prison. We call it the Freedom House. Unlike most state-run transitional houses, where residents’ lives are restricted and strictly managed, it is a unique, groundbreaking example of supportive transitional housing in which the housemates self-organize and self-manage their home.