Cypress House at St. Luke’s is an affiliated nonprofit organization of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Scranton, Pennsylvania. St. Luke’s has a long history of reaching out to the community and living into its historic motto, “In the heart of things.” Cypress House was incorporated in 2018 because of the skyrocketing incarceration rates in Scranton’s Lackawanna County, which has one of the highest jail incarceration rates in the state. St. Luke’s carries on its history of reaching out in service to those in need, today seeking to offer services to those coming out of incarceration.
There are staggering disparities among Black and Latino/a people imprisoned in the US given their overall representation in the general population. And women have become the fastest-growing segment of the incarcerated population. After their release, they become permanent second-class citizens and carry the stigma of a criminal background – making it unimaginably difficult to find a job. In 2021, the newly released were unemployed at a rate of 27%. The general US unemployment rate that same year was less than 6%, and today it’s under 4%.
Cypress House was inspired by the bakery at Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles. The Bakery and Café at Homeboy has been hugely successful, We are fortunate to partner with them as part of the Global Homeboy Network and continue to rely on their experiences and resources to help us open Cypress House Bakery.
We are also excited about the recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics that tell us bakery positions is projected to grow 5% from 2022 to 2032, surpassing the average growth for all occupations!
