{"id":250523,"date":"2025-09-24T03:05:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T03:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/250523\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T03:05:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T03:05:17","slug":"create-program-gives-new-yorkers-a-second-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/250523\/","title":{"rendered":"CREATE Program gives New Yorkers a second chance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Matthew Alvarado sells cannabis by the book now, but he sold pot illegally and paid the price.<\/p>\n<p>He was incarcerated multiple times, and says the Cannabis Reentry Employment Assistance and Training Experience, also known as \u201cCREATE,\u201d changed his life.<\/p>\n<p><b>What You Need To Know<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>CREATE is a partnership between the Mayor\u2019s Office of Criminal Justice, NYC Small Business Services and the nonprofit Housing Works<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>The program connects New Yorkers who have been arrested or convicted \u2014 typically for cannabis \u2014 with specialized classroom and on-the-job training in the legal cannabis industry<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>It aims to establish financial security for people trying to re-enter society after serving time, which the Mayor\u2019s Office of Criminal Justice says leads to lower recidivism rates and safer communities<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s changed dramatically. Mainly, I&#8217;m more peaceful. That&#8217;s the main thing, because I&#8217;m not looking over my shoulder. Worried about getting locked up, worried about any street problems or anything,\u201d he told NY1. \u201cIt&#8217;s my first time having a job and not selling drugs on the side.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>CREATE is a partnership between the Mayor\u2019s Office of Criminal Justice, NYC Small Business Services and the nonprofit Housing Works.<\/p>\n<p>The program connects New Yorkers who have been arrested or convicted \u2014 typically for cannabis \u2014 with specialized classroom and on-the-job training in the legal cannabis industry.<\/p>\n<p>Alvarado currently works at Superfly Dispensary on the Upper West Side, and his boss, Dino Krezovikj, says he is excelling.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHis progress is unbelievable. He&#8217;s been a great asset to the team. He&#8217;s been promoted to captain recently,\u201d Krezovikj said. \u201cSo, he&#8217;s been performing really, really well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The program aims to establish financial security for people trying to re-enter society after serving time, which the Mayor\u2019s Office of Criminal Justice says leads to lower recidivism rates and safer communities.<\/p>\n<p>Peter Roman, the job coach at CREATE, says this gives people a second chance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of people made mistakes in rough times in their lives, or when they were kids, and they shouldn&#8217;t be held accountable for that for the rest of their lives,\u201d Roman said. \u201cSo I think second chances are what makes society even better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Paid training includes a two-week workshop to learn about cannabis and customer service skills, followed by a four-week internship.<\/p>\n<p>As many as a dozen people participate each month, and the program has trained more than 100 people so far.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have interns that\u2019ve never had a job to now working full-time with benefits. So it&#8217;s been very impactful,\u201d Roman said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s impactful for Alvarado, because now he gets to share all he&#8217;s learned, helping others as he helps himself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt feels great, because I&#8217;m also educating other people the same way that CREATE educated me. I took every order and info that they gave me and I&#8217;m just passing it down to others \u2014 not only customers, but to some of my coworkers,\u201d Alvarado said. \u201cIt&#8217;s definitely happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matthew Alvarado sells cannabis by the book now, but he sold pot illegally and paid the price. He&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":250524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,21399,7448,126295,9829,405,403,50,5226,5225,5228,5227,132708,52,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5284],"class_list":{"0":"post-250523","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-app-human-interest","10":"tag-app-top-stories","11":"tag-emma-barnett","12":"tag-human-interest","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkcity","18":"tag-ny","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-on-air-ticker-article","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-usa","28":"tag-vod"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115257064250043708","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}