At Resolve, we are proud to offer a deeply collaborative fellowship program in which we support an early-career individual in creating a body of work that they can bring with them throughout their career. Our fellows execute a year-long project, supported and amplified by Resolve, focused on an original idea that relates to our approach to community- and solutions-informed journalism.
Stories that serve returning citizens are in our DNA – Resolve grew out of The Reentry Project, a collaborative reporting project that began in 2016. Our 2023-2024 reporting fellow, Ryan Moser, spent the last year collaborating with Resolve staff and our newsroom partners in the Philadelphia Journalism Collaborative to cover prisoner reentry in Philadelphia.
While serving as our fellow, Ryan covered everything that returning citizens face upon reentry – from the housing crisis to a resource helpline to finding employment. Here’s a look back at Ryan’s reporting over the last year.
Who is Ryan Moser?
Ryan Moser is a born-and-raised Philadelphian and a professional journalist of five years. During his former period of incarceration, he pursued an education in journalism and writing and became a correspondent for the Prison Journalism Project, covering the lives and communities of a Miami prison from the inside. It was while writing these articles and hearing people’s positive reactions that he discovered he could be an agent of change, and he has focused on telling the stories of justice-impacted individuals since his release.
Ryan was drawn to our fellowship after becoming familiar with the The Reentry Project. After evaluating the data and reporting on reentry services in Philadelphia and what they are lacking, he felt that this topic “needed to be covered by someone with lived experience.”
His personal experience as a returning citizen informed his approach to this reporting – he knew the questions to ask and what the facts were. When he worked with sources and experts on each subject he covered, he was able to parse the myths from facts when it came to hiring discrimination and unfulfilled services.
Stories from Ryan’s Reporting Fellowship
PA 211 Helpline: An Under-Sourced “Resource” for Returning Citizens | Kensington Voice
Ryan’s first story during his fellowship focused on PA 211, a 24/7 helpline that connects Philadelphians with local community resources like employment, housing, and legal assistance. The 211 website also has links specifically to reentry resources, making it a potential first stop for people getting out of jail or prison.
Ryan’s reporting uncovered that the website and helpline were not populated with many resources or services for returning citizens at all. In this story, he said that while PA 211 is helpful in theory, they not only need to seek more partnerships to expand their resource database, but also be promoted to more returning citizens before their release.
This story was published as a collaboration between Kensington Voice, Love Now Media, and Metro Philadelphia through the Philadelphia Journalism Collaborative.
From Bars to Belonging: Overcoming the Housing Crisis Facing Returning Citizens | Generocity
In this story for Generocity, Ryan explored the limited housing options available for people who are released from prison or jail without having a home to return to, which leave many living on the streets. This story featured Ryan’s own experience navigating a search for a rental home in Philadelphia, which was both the most important part – and the hardest – of rejoining his community.
‘Fair chance’ hiring helps formerly incarcerated people find work | The Philadelphia Inquirer
This story for the Inquirer is about Temple University’s Reentry Job Fair in April for previously incarcerated job seekers. Ryan attended the job fair and reported on the current state of fair chance hiring in Philadelphia. Fair Chance practices, now incentivized by tax breaks and funding, aim to reduce the bias formerly incarcerated job applicants face when returning home.
While writing this story, Ryan considered the impacts of his reporting and how it could serve returning citizens. And when the article was published, he got such a positive response from community organizations that he was able to approach Temple University about holding a forum targeted at employers who want to know more about Fair Chance hiring. Of the idea behind the event, Ryan said, “It’s one thing to have a job fair for people who already hire justice-impacted people, but what about employers who don’t?”
Fair Chance Hiring: A Forum
On Thursday, July 18, 2024, Resolve Philly and Temple University held a forum to share information about what it takes to become a Fair Chance employer. Ryan moderated the panel, which featured the real life experiences of Fair Chance employers as well as formerly incarcerated people who have firsthand experience trying to convince business owners to hire them.
For Ryan, this forum was not only the capstone on his time at Resolve, but an opportunity to bring solutions-informed journalism directly to people in an in-person space. He says Resolve’s ethos inspired and motivated him to develop this event – he specifically cited the work of Resolve’s community engagement team and Germantown Info Hub’s Rasheed Ajamu. “Rasheed is out in the community trying to find solutions for people,” he says. While his regular reporting was often a solitary process, this project allowed Ryan to collaborate with new people and create a physical environment to continue the conversation started in his Inquirer article.
Final Thoughts
“My reporting I did with Resolve was the most rewarding experience I’ve had yet,” he says. Ryan described Resolve as “a safe space to learn and train” as a professional journalist.
In continuation of his pursuit of solutions for the justice-impacted community, Ryan is continuing to report on reentry in Greater Philadelphia. And the work that Ryan started through the Fair Chance Hiring Forum will go on, too – he founded the Reentry Business Network, a corporate consulting firm which sponsored the forum and will provide training to companies that wish to become fair chance employers.