She needed an address. She found a new life. The Montgomery County Correctional Facility requires inmates to provide a home address before release. Once an upstanding community member, professional figure skater and dancer, there was a time when having a home address wasn’t even a thought in Lynn Tomeo’s mind. It had always been there. But after a tumultuous battle with opioid addiction, she had lost her home, and strained relationships with friends and family to a seemingly unmendable length. Left with nowhere to go, and therefore no definite release from jail, sanctuary proved to be a phone call away. “I called and Michelle [Simmons] said, ‘Sure, you can come,’” Tomeo says. On the day of Tomeo’s release in January of 2016, Reverend Michelle Simmons, founder and CEO of Why Not Prosper, showed up with clothes and the promise of a warm home and new future. Although her situation seemed dismal at the time of arrest, Tomeo has since recognized the silver lining beneath her incarceration. “I was arrested and that was the best thing that happened to me. You just have to say, ‘I’m tired of this. I surrender. I give up.’”
“Slowly you start to see them open up... the ladies figure out who they are again.” - Lynn Tomeo, Client
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