Darrell Hayes had been sent to prison four times in 11 years. He was 40 when he left prison in February. Now he says he finally has the support he needs to help turn his life around.

"The difference is that the last times I went to the penitentiary, I didn't have help as far as employment," Hayes said.

That help came from the Safer Foundation, which arranged for Hayes to get a job in an Allied Waste recycling sorting center, where he has worked seven months. He currently lives in a halfway house, from which he is scheduled to be released in February.

Ex-offenders' chances of finding a legitimate way to make a living and support a family are bleak. Many have incomplete education, few marketable skills, mental health or substance abuse problems and a lifetime of bad examples to follow.

For 34 years the Safer Foundation has fought those obstacles, providing training, education, counseling and job opportunities for ex-offenders.

The Safer Foundation is one of the Chicago area organizations supported by Chicago Tribune Holiday Giving, a campaign of Chicago Tribune Charities, a McCormick Tribune Foundation fund.

The work of the Safer Foundation has never been more critical. A record number of inmates have been paroled from Illinois prisons this year.

In a difficult economy, ex-offenders are even less likely than other workers to find gainful employment.

"We're already stereotyped," Hayes said. "Some people feel like you're less than human. Some people, when you fill out an application and tell them you've been convicted, they won't even call you back."

Safer Foundation was started by two former Catholic priests with a mission of "connecting people coming back from prison, focusing on work and the skills needed for work," said Jodina Hicks, the foundation's vice president for public policy and community partnerships.

The foundation also stresses the need for support services that include mental health and substance abuse counseling and access to housing, she said.

Most of Safer's funding comes from state and federal grants, but the foundation also receives private donations.

Safer operates work-release centers in Chicago and runs a program at the Sheridan Correctional Center to help inmates with the transition to life on the outside.

Part of the foundation's mission also is to reduce fears of hiring ex-offenders. Getting employers to hire ex-offenders can be difficult because of fears that they will be unreliable, may steal from the business or put other workers at risk.

To address those attitudes, Safer created Pivotal Partners, a non-profit employment agency that places ex-offenders in jobs.

"We found employers would be more likely to hire people with records if it's through an organization," Hicks said. "They don't have to do the hiring, firing and insurance. (With ex-offenders) there's more liability. We're taking that risk."

However, Safer encourages employers to hire the workers directly after they have proven reliable. Making them permanent employees is in the business' interest, Hicks said, because they receive a $2,400 federal tax credit for hiring an ex-offender.

Pivotal Partners currently employs more than 300 people, most of whom work at Allied Waste trash and recycling sorting centers. The jobs sorting trash at Allied pay minimum wage, but workers who stick it out receive raises every three months, said Steve Buschkopf, director of Pivotal Partners.

"Getting them to work, and to stay at work, two weeks to 30 days is the biggest hurdle. They can see ... some benefit of getting up and going to work every day," Buschkopf said.

"And then we help them find a secondary job with a bigger set of benefits, with some skill sets," he said.

Most of Safer's clients are young men who went to prison for drug crimes or offenses related to gangs and drug-dealing. Keeping them on the road to recovery is a challenge because of the easy, albeit high-risk, income they could get on the streets.

Of the 8,300 people served by Safer every year, about 7,900 stay with the program.

Of the 5,600 either on parole or free, about 3,900 are ready to look for work, Hicks said, and Safer places about 2,000 ex-offenders in jobs every year.

Warehousing and distribution centers are the best job market for ex-offenders, Hicks said. They are typically "back-room" jobs, making employers more willing to hire people with records. But the jobs also pay relatively well and have shown some room for advancement for workers who do well.

One of the chief challenges for such jobs is that most warehouse distribution centers are clustered along major highways on the fringes of the suburbs, far from the city.

For ex-offenders like Hayes, Safer's work has helped them change the way they see their own lives.

"Being gang-affiliated, I couldn't collect a 401(k) off that. I can't file income tax off that. So I had to search for that change inside myself," Hayes said.

"Now, I'm able to stand on the street corner waiting on the bus, when years ago I'd been standing on the corner selling drugs. And that's a big change."

dheinzmann@tribune.com