Angela Yee, award-winning media personality and entrepreneur, discussed “Building A Wealth Legacy” and how she is assisting women who have served time in prison to achieve success through the development of a 30-unit building in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, during a presentation at the recently concluded 2023 Elite 100 Wealth and Legacy Summit.
“It’s hard to get housing when you get out of prison. If you look at the numbers, of how difficult it is, they used to ask you if you’ve ever been convicted of a felony, and people would not get housing,” Yee noted.
Forbes told the tale of Topeka K. Sam, who was all too familiar with it. She faced a 130-month sentence, which was later reduced to 65 months. After being released, she dedicated her entire life to establishing The Ladies of Hope Ministries, which provides secure housing and reentry support for women.
Today, Sam is also a member of Yee’s all-female staff that supports the building’s real estate. Her participation in the initiative highlighted the problems that persons who are incarcerated routinely experience, as well as the need of helping women who have endured identical challenges.
Yee shared, “She [Sam] got a presidential pardon from Trump. When we included her in this deal, the bank actually wouldn’t get us a loan unless we took her off. It was very emotional because it was yet another obstacle for somebody who has great credit and all of those things. But I was like, let’s get this done right so that we can, later on, discuss what type of policies need to be implemented in the future so this doesn’t happen to somebody else.”
She continued, “So, part of what we’re doing with that building is making sure that women who are formerly incarcerated have a certain amount of those units that will be allocated to them.”
According to Prison Policy, black and Native Americans have the lowest wages after being released from federal prison. Furthermore, white persons “appeared to be more disadvantaged and less employable ‘on paper,’ owing to longer sentences or higher rates of substance abuse.”
However, people from the Black and Hispanic groups who got prison sentences continue to be employed at a higher rate.