Blog: Community Spring Insights
Captive Marketplace: The Monetization of Basic Life Behind Bars
Commissary prices in Florida jails and prisons don’t just strain incarcerated people, it strains their families and loved ones, often already living under the poverty line. When commissary prices go unchecked, incarcerated people and their families become a captive marketplace for exploitation. Commissary markups perpetuate cycles of poverty, debt and instability. Through his fellowship at Community Spring, Chris Perry is digging into real solutions to this issue here in Alachua county. Discover what this work could mean for our communities in his new blog.
Impact in the Face of Divestment: The State of Community Spring in 2026
Community Spring is stronger, more effective, and regularly recognized as a national model. However, despite these successes, we’re at a tough spot because steady funding is becoming harder to find. Here’s how you can keep the momentum going.
A Real Chance at Housing: How a Landlord Mitigation Fund Could Disrupt the Cycle of Poverty and Mass Incarceration
My difficulty with securing housing is not an isolated experience. In Gainesville, so many others are facing the same obstacles, denied stability not by the lack of effort, but by systemic barriers that make housing inaccessible. Being a current fellow at Community Spring has pushed me to look deeper into this, how background checks keep families trapped in cycles of poverty and homelessness, and what can be done to change it.
Hoping for Normal: Inside 200+ Applications for Guaranteed Income
More than 200 people applied to our guaranteed income program last month. One applicant just spent fifteen years inside a Florida prison. When we asked about his hopes for the next year, he wrote: "I hope next year that things will just be…
A New Spring: How Community Spring Changed My Life
My name is Leigh Scott, and a little while ago, I began a journey that fundamentally changed my life: I became a Fellow at Community Spring. It wasn’t just another line on my résumé; it was a profound period of growth, learning, and genuine empowerment…
Building Power from Pain: Community Spring’s Fellowship
Kelly Lynch didn't just survive her experiences with addiction, incarceration, and loss—she turned them into her power. From burying her mother's beer bottles as a child to serving time in jail while pregnant, her journey was a relentless fight for a different life. But it was a small, crumpled piece of paper that led her to Community Spring and a new kind of healing.
Community Spring Storyteller Spotlight: Shelly Seymour
Through our storytelling workshops we invite justice-impacted community members to join us to work on various writing projects. Here’s a piece from one of our storytellers, Shelly Seymour.
Shelly Seymour is an authentic person filled with love and excited to do her part in making the world a better place. She wrote this piece during one of our storytelling workshops, where she expressed the powerful feelings and emotions of incarceration. She wants everyone to experience life vividly and honestly with open hearts to change for the better.
Complexity, Community, and Change: Five Years with Community Spring
From our first days, Wolf has been a key part of Community Spring. As our former Director of Narrative Change, she's not only changed how we tell our story but has also been greatly changed by her time with us. Her five-year journey shows the strong, two-way bond between people who care and the causes they support.
Freedom from the Inside Out: The Silent Revolution
Officer: “When I call your name, step out for court… Irving!”
Today is my court date. The day I hoped would bring my freedom — a return to my family, my purpose, my life.
A week earlier, I’d been pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt on my way to work. A University of Florida officer ran my name, saw my license was suspended, and…
Community Spring Storyteller Spotlight: Bobby King
Through our storytelling workshops we invite justice-impacted community members to join us to work on various writing projects. Here’s a piece from one of our storytellers, Bobby King.
Bobby King is a local community member. He wrote this piece to express a sense of care for communities facing challenges that he has faced in the past, and in some instances, challenges he is currently facing. He wants justice impacted folks to know that they’re never alone and that there’s someone who cares deeply about them.