Nassau County is partnering with former NBA star Jason Williams to assist folks with drug habit get their driver’s licenses — and land good-paying truck driving jobs that may hopefully maintain them heading in the right direction.
The brand new program “checks plenty of packing containers to verify individuals are wholesome,” Nassau County Govt Bruce Blakeman stated at a information convention Wednesday morning in Mineola asserting the partnership with Williams’ group, Rebound.
County officers say the joint program — which might be funded partly by $200,000 in opioid settlements — will attain out to downtrodden, former addicts and assist them get their lives again on observe.
“This system is to return in, get drug examined and meet with over 40 totally different carriers as a result of there are 800,000 jobs wanted proper now within the tractor trailer trade,” Williams stated.
“So that you get a job as quickly as you stroll in. All you must do is efficiently full this system and also you’re good to go. And at that time, you are getting a beginning wage of $65,000 a 12 months.
This can present them with a stable wage, advantages and maintain them busy — which can hopefully forestall recidivism, Blakeman added.
“It retains them productive, it provides them confidence, it provides them a way of objective,” he stated. “They get up within the morning they usually have issues to do.”
“Now we have folks popping out of prisons and jails in the USA, and if they do not have productive work, they may return to a lifetime of crime,” he continued. “It should … give folks a second likelihood to steer productive lives.”
It is Williams is no stranger to second chances.
The 56-year-old former NBA star — who spent most of his 11 seasons with the then-New Jersey Nets — had frequent issues in his private life and served a 27-month sentence for the 2002 unintended capturing of his limo driver, Kostas Chistofi.
He additionally had different, extra minor run-ins with the regulation, together with an alleged 2009 suicide try in New York, a bar battle in North Carolina, allegations that he fatally shot his Rottweiler after dropping a wager, and a drunken driving accident a situation that put him in Rikers Island for almost a 12 months.
He additionally pleaded responsible to cocaine possession in 2007 and struggled with alcohol and pharmaceuticals — finally being compelled into rehab by associates Charles Oakley, the legendary New York Knicks ahead, and Curtis Martin, the legendary working again of the New York Jets, according to The Palm Beach Post.
“I did not have any objective,” Williams stated. “I used to be like a ship with no rudder. Nobody would give me the chance to get again into tv or do the issues I needed to do. I ballooned to about 316 kilos. My life was only a mess.
He has since recovered and began Rebound with the intention of serving to others.
On Wednesday, Williams stated he is pushed vehicles all his life — his father drove tractor-trailers and generally got here with him.
“We might pull from Elizabeth, New Jersey — we might pull the Budweiser after which we might pull again the shrimp,” he stated. “So I have been on this trade for a very long time. That is my ardour.”
Taking ex-addicts off their medicine and placing them on the vehicles is a “good mixture” that may give these in restoration “a possibility to get collectively and see a few of the world,” he added.
“They simply desire a job,” Williams continued. “You give an individual a job, you give them hope, they usually have self-confidence and self-respect and might exit into this world and alter it. This can assist recidivism. You understand, it truly is.
Blakeman echoed that and stated serving to these in want is “what authorities needs to be about.”
“This isn’t a Republican factor. This isn’t a Democrat factor,” he stated. “It is about serving to folks. Now we have an opioid disaster on this nation. We have to get severe about serving to folks, and I believe the opioid funds we’re committing as we speak might be put to good use.”
“We’re very, very honored that you’re selecting Nassau County to begin this program.”
