In the first six months of a new Portage County Jail transportation program, 173 people recently released from the jail have taken advantage of free rides to a PARTA hub, personally accompanied by a social worker offering help with employment and housing.
Emerald Transportation, an arm of Axess Family Services (formerly Family & Community Services of Portage County), began transporting people released from the county jail in January. The need arose after dozens of people found themselves walking miles down Infirmary Road to reach a bus stop, some of them arriving after dark and having to spend the night outside in downtown Ravenna.
Mark Frisone, executive director of AFS, says the transport program is a success. In six months Emerald Transportation has shuttled 173 people from the jail to a PARTA hub at UH Portage Medical Center in Ravenna. Each rider is provided with a bus ticket and, if necessary, cash to cover the cost of a second bus ride to Cleveland or Akron.
Perhaps equally as important, AFS re-entry peer supporter Rodney Mack is present on each 6 p.m. trip, ready and able to hook riders up with services they may need. Employment. Transportation. A place to live.
“We’re not providing rides from the jail simply to get them to a PARTA stop,” Frisone said. “We’re also offering them, through Rodney Mack, long-term services. He gets them on the day they’re released from jail. I know a number of those 173 have taken Rodney up on his offer.”
AFS has spent about $3,100 on the transport program, Frisone said, adding a shout-out to the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Portage County for funding Mack’s part-time salary.
Until last fall, the Portage County Sheriff’s Office policy regarding people who didn’t have rides after being released from the county jail was to transport them to downtown Ravenna. But sometimes people weren’t released until after the last bus.
Following outcry from numerous public officials and local merchants that some of the stranded people were causing problems in the city, the sheriff’s office stopped its transports. That left the people to walk miles along Infirmary Road, a poorly lit two-lane stretch of blacktop with no sidewalks and little to no berm.
Learning about their plight, Frisone suggested a solution acceptable to Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski. Emerald Transportation vans would arrive at the jail morning and evening to provide transports, and would provide people with bus passes.
Lack of morning ridership prompted Frisone to eventually cancel the morning run, but he said each evening run has three to four riders.
Wendy DiAlesandro is a former Record Publishing Co. reporter and contributing writer for The Portager.