The work, not the name
Somebody goes in shackled.
Somebody has to come back for them.
Women give birth in custody. People come home to a record that keeps answering for them. Families get separated and then get billed for it. The argument this suite runs on is that a system built to punish can be rebuilt to repair — for mothers, for returning citizens, for families, for whole neighborhoods — and that the people already doing that work should not have to build their own tools to do it.
This is the toolkit that work runs on.
This seat is open
For the advocates who
take this work up
HURON VALLEY
YPSILANTI MI
Live campaign · The Watch, Campaign 01
Five women have died at Michigan's only prison for women.
Mold reported for a decade, a federal lawsuit in discovery, a legislative oversight hearing, and five deaths in custody since November 2025. Four of them inside eight weeks.
Read it and make one call →
And the part that outlasts the campaign: the minimum habitability standard we're drafting so this stops happening anywhere →
The work
Four lanes
- Maternal health & life — pregnancy in crisis, birth behind bars, and Black maternal mortality.
- Reentry & record relief — the road home, and clearing what follows you.
- Family & community outreach — Skid Row, trafficking, and the households holding on.
- Advocacy & media — the platform, the record, and the rooms this argument has to get into.
What is already true
The ground this stands on
- The anti-shackling provision of the First Step Act exists because women who gave birth in restraints refused to let it stay quiet.
- Transitional maternity homes — real beds, prenatal care, a plan — are the difference between a birth in crisis and a family that stays together.
- Black maternal mortality in the United States runs roughly three times the white rate, and custody makes every one of those numbers worse.
- A record keeps answering for people long after the sentence is finished — housing, work, licensing, custody.
- Families separated by incarceration and trafficking are held together, when they are held together at all, by advocates working without tools.
What the work actually needs
Three ways to be useful today.
Refer someone
A pregnant woman or new mother in crisis who needs a bed, prenatal care, or a plan.
Start a referral →Volunteer
Renovation days, street outreach, drives, and events. Come with your hands.
Sign up →Give
Beds, prenatal care, mental-health referrals, and job placement cost money.
How to give →The front desk
Tell it plain. We'll find you the right door.
Say what is happening in your own words. You will get pointed at one of the six tools and told why. Nothing you type is stored, and nothing is sent to anyone.
This is a switchboard, not a lawyer, a doctor, or an advocate. It does not give legal or medical advice and it cannot take your case. If you are in danger or in crisis, call or text 988; if someone's life is at risk right now, call 911.
The tools
Six doors. Walk through the one that fits.
Six doors, in a minute and a half 1:26 · narrated
A narrator, not an advocate — third person throughout, library footage, no one's likeness. If you would rather read, every door is a card below.
Pregnant, postpartum, or in custody
The Maternity Home
The house itself — refer a woman, volunteer, or give. Plus what the law says about restraints, prenatal care, and birth in custody, and the words to say out loud when someone tells you no.
Open the maternity home →
Come home
Second Chance Pathway
Reentry, supervision, record relief, and clemency — plain language, real steps, and the clinics that actually file the paperwork.
Open Second Chance →
Ask for help
The Table
Ask an advocate to take it up, and find the other women carrying the same weight — pregnancy, reentry, and the long wait in between.
Open The Table →
Show up
Street Team
Maternal and street outreach, homeless outreach, trafficking awareness, and the drives that keep the house stocked. Run clean, run professional, and let the kids watch you do it.
Open Street Team →
Something happened inside
The Witness Log
Write down what happened in a facility, keep your own dated copy, and get routed to the offices that have the legal power to investigate it. Private — nothing is published.
Open The Witness Log →
Build the record on a facility
The Watch
Mold, medical neglect, retaliation, abuse. File it against the facility, so what happened to your person stops being one letter and starts being a pattern an investigator, a legislator, or a reporter can act on. Currently watching Women's Huron Valley in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
Open The Watch →
The Witness Log and The Watch are not the same decision. The Log is private and publishes nothing — start there. The Watch puts a named facility on the record, and it opens with one campaign rather than an open database for exactly that reason.
On the record
See the work
Ordered by what matters most, not by date. These are the suite's own films, served from this site — no embed, no third-party player, and nothing loaded from anyone else until you press play.
Born Between 2 Generals
Who owns this, and who gets to use it.
The short version: the company built it and owns it, the nonprofits license it, and the books are separate. It is written down rather than left to trust — the long version is on the privacy page.
The partnership, in one minute 0:59 · narrated
Narrator, third person, library footage. Nothing in it depicts a real partner.