Mass Liberation began with a conversation between coworkers after a long work shift on Skid Row.

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Jay Gutierrez and Joelle Kirtley worked side by side at an employment prep service, serving LA's homeless and reentry communities. One evening in 2016, talking after hours, they realized they weren't just doing similar work; they had very similar visions for what reentry housing and programming should really look like.

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Jay had started building that vision from the inside. During his eleven years of incarceration, Jay had become a peer mentor and educated himself with every book he could borrow from the small prison library. He worked to understand others in a different way, meeting them where they were. He made parole at his first opportunity, and decided to continue to make empathy his path. Over the following ten years, he worked in various reentry and social services efforts. 

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Joelle's path wound through academia and teaching, but it led to the same starting place as Jay: a belief that every individual has the potential for compassion and joy, and that it is everyone’s responsibility to help others meet these potentials. 

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By 2019, they built a formal plan and asked Rev to join the team. Growing up, Rev had watched her father, struggling with mental health issues, interacting with the justice system time and time again. Motivated by these interactions and by others she saw in her rural community, Rev chose to go to law school to become a defense attorney after serving in the military. 

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Three people, one conviction: those coming home from incarceration deserve a place to belong.

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Then something extraordinary happened. A family, moved by their vision, gave more than they'd ever dared hope for; enough to turn a dream into safe places to make it happen. Within a year they opened a community center and two transitional homes. Since that first year, Mass Liberation has become home to formerly incarcerated staff, residents, and program participants, an organization where people feel loved and accepted, welcomed back from a time of isolation and deprivation.