OUR PROJECTS

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We Are Currently Developing the World's First Music Homeless Artists Recording Label, formed by The Homeless, for the Homeless to End Homelessness.

We shall work with homeless music artists who wish to develop, record, and produce music strictly anonymously to raise money to aid in our cause of ending homelessness and poverty. 

Each musical contributor shall agree with us to uniquely market all music through light animation, cartoon, sound, and videos that does not depict or reveal the original creator(s)' identity to the musical creation they contribute. 

These artists recognize the importance of helping people, without the need of others who may judge them based on their past, orientation, looks and views connected to their musical creations.

These artists are not out for either fame or judgment from others. 

They seek to revolutionize the music industry through their uniqueness, for the purpose of sharing their light and love to help the less fortunate.

The goal of this project is to provide low income assistance to individuals lacking permanent stability, who are full-timing or seeking to full-time in RV's and Trailers in campgrounds in San Diego

The specific services we offer are as follows:

 1.  County and local resources including food, housing, travel, vehicle and trailer/RV maintenance and insurance assistance;

2. Connecting with well known homeless advocates;

3.  Extended emergency lodging for those with existing camping memberships;

4.  Amusement, holiday and celebrations assistance for families with children;

5. Eco-village placement for those who desire to explore this option.

 "It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens but its lowest."
-Nelson Mandela

FROM INSIDE TO OUTSIDE
Exploitation and Enslavement of the Imprisoned

The United States has over 1.2 million people incarcerated in both federal and state prisons. Incarcerated workers produce over $2 billion each year in various goods and over $9 billion per year for their labor to maintain the prisons they’re locked up in, earning barely dollars a day in various jobs that may even endanger their lives. Not all are lucky though- seven states- Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas- don’t pay inmates for their labor. 

Elsewhere, the wages can range from $0.13 to $0.52 per hour. Over half (59%) of income is deducted for things such as room and board, court-imposed fines, restitution, and other fees. Almost 70% of prisoners say they cannot afford basic needs with their wages while behind bars. 

Another issue is that most labor laws and OSHA regulations exclude imprisoned laborers who may find themselves untrained in dangerous workplaces.[1]

While most jobs available to inmates vary from janitorial services to working in the laundromat, or even making masks as was the case during the COVID-19 pandemic, the opportunity to fight fires means an individual would put their lives on the line. 

Inmates in California (and in numerous states) are relied on to augment career firefighters in combatting blazes. They must meet security requirements and go through two weeks of training before living in ‘fire camps,’ earning between $2.90 and $5.00 per day (slightly more if fighting a fire). Around a third of California’s firefighting force is made up of these prison firefighters.

The likelihood of inmate firefighters to be injured by an object in the field is four times that of a professional, and smoke inhalation is eight times more likely.[2] 

In California alone, six prison firefighters have lost their lives actively fighting blazes in the last 39 years. Although these individuals earn two days off their sentence for every day that they are in the fire camps, they are still paid a pittance and face a higher chance of being homeless upon release.[3] 

Formerly incarcerated individuals are over 10 times likely to become homeless than the public in general. In the year before incarceration, national research shows up to fifteen percent of inmates were homeless. As finding employment with a criminal record makes it more difficult, housing can be just as, if not more, complicated. 

Those just freed from their first incarceration are seven times more likely to become homeless, and those who have been in two or more times have a chance to be unhoused thirteen times higher than normal. Anti-homelessness legislature makes it easy for these individuals to be incarcerated again for the acts of sleeping, panhandling, and many other acts.

 
Research shows formerly imprisoned individuals are the most likely to be homeless after release, and are reliant, both immediately and over the long term, on shelters. 

Those who have been out less than two years are twice as likely to be homeless than those who have been out for more than four years, but even these individuals are four times more likely to become homeless due to a lack of long-term support. 

Over 570 out of 10,000 former prisoners are housing insecure, almost three times as many as those who are homeless (203 out of 10,000).[4]

Why is our Prison Project More Efficient than Others?

TIMESCAPES ART GALLERY is an extension of the Prison Habilitation Art Projects created by Coalition for True World Change (C4TWC) in 2023 to serve as the world’s first nonprofit prison art project.

HABILITATION 

NOT 

REHABILITATION 

We are committed to habilitating (not rehabilitating) imprisoned artists. 

Rehabilitation seeks to restore a person to their former status. In most cases, prisoners’ former status involved being lost, having prior criminal records, mental health, and/or substance abuse issues which impeded on their ability to acclimate into society to live crime free lives.
Habilitation, loosely translated, means to endow one with the ability. 

Our program seeks to endow prisoners with financial accountability to victims via the State’s Victim Restitution Funds and a moral accountability to community public interest and safety by assisting them with housing and employment upon release.

With our program, 40% of the money that inmates earn through art sales is applied towards State’s Victim Restitution Funds. Forty percent would go to the inmate’s eco-village fund to be applied towards the development of Ama-gi eco-villages, which would assist them with housing and employment upon release within our eco-village project. Lastly, 20% will be applied towards our Prison Habilitation Art Program (P.H.A.P) for hosting the gallery, communications with inmates, advertisements, and marketing, 

We believe within the confines of prisons, there exists those who possess creative and unique gifts that need to be discovered and cultivated to help heal not only their lives, but the lives of others. 

We believe that prisoners should learn to master their own lives through their own artistic creativity and entrepreneurship skills. This is especially true in that prisoners are being released, many of whom have served numerous years, into an unfair economic system which is only getting worse. 

To compound the issue, prisoners are released without funding into a society that lacks housing and shelters, unemployed, unsheltered, and unhoused, forcing them to die on the streets. 

[1] https://www.aclu.org/report/captive-labor-exploitation-incarcerated-workers?redirect=captivelabor
[2] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-history-of-californias-inmate-firefighter-program-180980662/#:~:text=It's%20grueling%2C%20dangerous%20work.,collapsing%20on%20a%20training%20hike.
[3] https://fortune.com/2019/11/01/california-prisoners-fighting-wildfires/
[4] https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/housing.html#recentlyreleased