Depending on whose figures you use, the recidivism rate for those released from prison in the U.S. is between 40% and 70%.

Perry Clark said he's gotten that down to 1% for participants in his Akron program.

Clark started the nonprofit Truly Reaching You (TRY) in 1999 after he finished a 10-year sentence for drug-related crimes.

The program teaches life skills — everything from how to manage personal finances to what employers expect and how to deliver — along with skills such as landscaping, carpentry, plumbing, electrical, and heating and ventilation work, Clark said. Clients start out working in lower-skilled jobs, like demolition, and work their way up into more advanced positions.

Participants also get peer support with addiction issues, mentoring and other support mechanisms that are vital to their long-term success, Clark said.

Then, Clark meets with prospective employers, including many who have hired previous clients, to match candidates to jobs and shepherd program participants through the interview, hiring and ultimately the beginnings of the job.

Clark began by trying to help three men he knew. Today, he's not sure how many he's helped — "around 110 or 120," he said.

He doesn't have to think about how many fell back.

"Only one has gone back to prison … He wasn't ready. I should have known," Clark said.

TRY has found support from United Way of Summit County, Gov. John Kasich's Faith Based and Community Initiatives, Cuyahoga Falls' JAH Foundation and Hudson's PEGS Foundation — among others, Clark said.

It's also worked with the Summit County Land Bank to obtain and work on dilapidated properties in and around Akron. Teaching his clients trades in construction is a linchpin of TRY's work, Clark said.

Today, TRY has eight houses in Akron, with a total of 28 beds occupied by former inmates. TRY owns all of the houses — rehabbing is also part of it's mission — and clients must be residents to participate in the program. Residents get up and go to work in the morning — or to church, or to a support session, or some sort of schooling. Clark doesn't believe in letting vulnerable men fall back into trouble on autopilot. There are no drugs, no drinking.

Folks are taking note, too. Jerry Fiume, who founded and heads SVN Summit Commercial Real Estate Group, pointed to developer Tony Troppe's United Building during a recent walk through downtown Akron. It's being converted into a boutique hotel.

"The guys in there doing the demo are former inmates," said Fiume, who volunteers as a member of Clark's board of directors.

Fiume continued, "Perry's doing some amazing work. … He's helping to rebuild downtown."

Troppe refers to TRY's work as "redemptive" and said he's used the program's crews on several buildings with success.

"I'm just impressed by the way they follow solid direction and then have a complete and thorough follow-through," Troppe said.

But when it comes to TRY's program participants, it's slow work. And it has to be, Clark said.

He has found jobs for most of the men who have gone through his program and many have found work on their own, he said. They usually work at local landscaping companies, construction firms and local manufacturers, but getting them ready for employment takes time.

Learning hard job skills or even a trade is often the easy part, Clark said. It's changing a person's lifestyle that takes time.

"We did not get stuck in our addictions, whether it's drugs or alcohol or whatever, overnight," Clark said. "So why would you think you're going to change overnight?"

Clark starts working with clients months before they are released.

They may be in the TRY program for months or even years. Clark said he currently has three men who have been in TRY for three years. He doesn't want them to leave until they're ready to work. Until then, TRY employs the men itself to work on and expand its housing network, while training and preparing them for outside work.

The pace of Clark's work doesn't surprise Vickie Miller, director of the Columbus-based Training Assessment Placement Project (TAPP), which places former prisoners into jobs in the plastics and steel industries.

Her 3-year-old program has placed 55 former inmates into jobs, she said, with a rate of recidivism close to TRY's.

She works with clients for between 10 days and a month. But TAPP's clients have to be fairly close to ready to work on release, with housing and a driver's license.

"On any given month, I probably screen more than 100 people — and I don't even get 10%," Miller said.

TRY, on the other hand, is working to get its clients to that stage from the start, Clark said.

But when it succeeds, it's finding an increasingly accepting job market.

Both Clark and Miller said placing clients has gotten easier, especially in the past year or two because demand for workers is high and many employers realize that employment is the best way to keep people from returning to prison.