Change Agents The Podcast

The Foundation of Freedom: Maria Garza on Housing, Healing & Change

• Reparations Media • Season 5 • Episode 6

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After over a decade behind bars, Maria Garza returned to a world with little support and even less stability. Facing housing insecurity and emotional strain, she saw firsthand the failures of a system that promised rehabilitation but delivered barriers. Determined to break the cycle, she co-founded Challenge II Change, a reentry organization that centers stable housing and mental health as the foundation for real second chances.

Produced by Cary Robbins, with Noble Thompson and Noah Tomko-Jones  for Reparations Media NFP | In collaboration with Maria Garza and Challenge II Change @challengeiichange

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SPEAKER_02:

Our reentry experience is marginalized by the fact that people believe anything should be better than prison.

SPEAKER_00:

That's Maria Garza, co-founder of Challenge to Change. I'm producer Keri Robbins. This is an interview with Maria Garza for Change Agents, the podcast. Contributing producers for this episode are Noble Thompson and Noah Tomko-Jones. Maria Garza remembers the first meal she ate when she was released from prison after serving nine and a half years. She still remembers going to the McDonald's drive-thru and being confused by the new touchscreens. Her first few nights were a struggle.

SPEAKER_02:

You become institutionalized with things. I couldn't sleep. I was used to the sounds of the fans at Logan because I was in the dog program and so we had fans circulating. You know, the constant noise, I was used to that and could sleep through that. That kind of like rocked me to sleep, you know? And without it, like the peacefulness, the quietness was hard for me to adjust to. And sometimes I think just, I don't know, like you're like, oh my God, I'm out.

SPEAKER_00:

Within months of her release, Maria faced even greater challenges. Her housing arrangements changed and she was faced with housing insecurity. In 2011, Maria was arrested for calculated criminal drug conspiracy, trafficking, and possession with intent to deliver. The charges were part of a larger indictment stemming back to 2006. She would eventually serve more than a decade in prison. Maria had turned to crime after years of financial hardship as a single mother. She had two children to provide for and was working three jobs that did not cover the debts she faced from her previous relationship.

SPEAKER_02:

I was like, just so in debt. Bills that were always put under my name, things like that. My credit was shot. I didn't have transportation. I had the two kids, nobody to help me with daycare. I had three jobs.

SPEAKER_00:

Burdened by debt and with little time to care for her children, Maria turned to crime to make ends meet. The choice allowed her to make good money and still have time to spend with her kids.

SPEAKER_02:

I couldn't see myself getting out the hole. It was like I was in a hole. I couldn't get out by myself.

SPEAKER_00:

In those early days, Maria didn't think about the impact her crimes had on individuals, especially disenfranchised communities. It wasn't until her third year in pretrial status at Cook County Jail that the magnitude of her actions hit. It was during a conversation with a visiting priest.

SPEAKER_02:

He goes, can you say from your heart, that you know for a fact that not one person died from those drugs. Tears are pouring down my face. I was just as accountable as anybody who puts a gun in somebody's hand and tells them to go and shoot somebody. You know? And so, yes, that is what... led me to my work and changed my perspective on how I viewed myself as a person, my case, and my debt to society, my search for self redemption.

SPEAKER_00:

After her release from prison in June of 2021, Maria faced a difficult transition. Without the foundation of stable housing, she struggled to rebuild her life. Initially, she roomed with her best friend and then her godparents, but neither arrangement lasted. With no stable place to go, she began sleeping in her car and staying in motels where drug use and sales were common. She describes that time as even worse than prison, where she at least felt physically safe at night.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm still a Northwestern student at the time. And so like I'm trying to make it all work and I'm in a motel. And like it became really depressing. I don't think I ever can say that I have felt depressed. I have felt like under pressure, stress. But to say depressed, I think that would be the time.

SPEAKER_00:

By the end of 2021, things began to shift. Through a friend who served as a pastor at a local church, Maria was given a chance to rent a parsonage.

SPEAKER_02:

It's a cute little box house for like$300 a month. And it's fully furnished. And it's got a basement with washer and dryer and a good-sized kitchen and a living room. It was just perfect.

SPEAKER_00:

Despite the comfort of the home, Maria couldn't quite call it her own.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm still trying to make it work. I think the parsonage gave me stability, you know? I remember the first night staying there, it was a relief because I knew I was no longer homeless. But it wasn't home, if that makes sense. I think I'm still searching for that moment where I can say, this is mine.

SPEAKER_00:

In September 2021, Maria co-founded Challenge to Change with Javier Reyes after the two met while working in criminal restorative justice reform and policy and advocacy. Challenge to Change is focused on supporting people reentering community after incarceration. Maria's own struggle with housing insecurity after prison helped contribute to the organization's mission.

SPEAKER_02:

We want to redefine really what reentry is. And not only that, that we keep looking at the social issues that we have regarding incarceration as different issues. You think community violence intervention, you know? You can't talk violence prevention without having reentry at the table.

SPEAKER_00:

Today, Challenge to Change not only provides reentry support. They also own and operate temporary supportive housing for justice-involved individuals in Aurora. In 2023, the organization received a grant through the Illinois Housing Development Authority as part of their Housing for Justice Involved Individuals program. The funding allowed them to purchase their first properties that provide temporary housing for eight people. Now, with continued support, Challenge to Change is expanding even further, recently securing additional funding to acquire three more properties.

SPEAKER_02:

I feel reentry itself has even become limited and marginalized. Who has access to it? How they can get access to it? Once they have access to it, how they navigate the spaces to be able to get to the referral pathways? And you know, why wouldn't it be that way when reentry was thought up, the concept of it, by somebody that has never reentered?

SPEAKER_00:

Maria says Challenge to Change offers a safe space for people to reenter life with support from people who are still trying to figure out their own journey.

SPEAKER_02:

Both Javier and I have lived the instabilities of Like practically not having somewhere to go, not having someone stable, being on the couch, how it impacts a person mentally, physically, and how that itself brings on other barriers to successful reentry.

SPEAKER_00:

Maria says finding housing for the people she serves is a priority.

SPEAKER_02:

If people don't have to worry, then they can focus on their reentry. Worrying isn't one of them, you know. regards to where is it going to be and is it going to be on the streets and and stuff like that and i guess that just gives me the the comfort that if we could take the worry out then we can focus on the re-entry experience

SPEAKER_00:

maria explained how the carceral system wasn't designed to prevent recidivism she said that people may have a job in education but without a home there's no foundation to rebuild a stable life Maria recently visited Mexico for the first time in 20 years. Her vision of home comes from growing up the middle child of three siblings and splitting time between her parents in the U.S. and her family in Mexico.

SPEAKER_02:

Us eating together, it's so respected, it's so worshipped, it's so... Everybody comes to eat, you know, at the table. Even when you eat it, it's just so nourishing just to be in that space us laughing, talking.

SPEAKER_00:

While Maria has a roof over her head, being able to see her family again helped her realize what she was missing in her home, the sense of family and community without judgment.

SPEAKER_02:

There, I did feel a sense of home. But, you know, I don't live there. I don't reside there. There, I do feel I don't have to put barriers. I don't have to have eyes behind the back of my head. It's a whole different culture. the love, the warmth, the embrace, everything.

SPEAKER_00:

As she continues searching for a permanent place to call home, Maria says she carries with her the memory of her family in Mexico, the security she felt around the dinner table. In Maria's eyes, her work has offered a path to redemption. Her own reentry journey has had its ups and downs, but she is thankful for the opportunity to help others. Her path has led her to discover an essential key to finding home.

SPEAKER_02:

It's feeling safe. It's feeling stable. It's knowing that it's long-term, peaceful, you know, your comfort zone. I think that that's what your home should be.

UNKNOWN:

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