“Too many of these people get out, they hit a blind wall everywhere they turn, and they give up,” Mr. Bailey said. “They say, ‘Well, I guess I better go rob a bank or I’ll go hungry, or more likely a 7-Eleven or a liquor store.’”

Mr. Bailey recalls that his speech highlighted a program in which businesspeople gave jobs to carefully chosen early-release convicts and mentored them while they got back on their feet. It had been particularly successful in Minneapolis, where, Mr. Bailey said, it was able to reduce the recidivism rate to 19 percent from 73 percent.

Ms. Walsh approached Mr. Bailey after the speech and asked how she could set up a similar program in Maine.

“Margo, no one will hire them,” she recalled him saying. “That’s why I’m here talking about it.”

Mr. Bailey wasn’t aware of any for-profit businesses that were fully devoted to this model, so Ms. Walsh decided she would fill the gap. But she had a problem: a lack of start-up capital.

“I was a single mother, head of household, on MaineCare and SNAP benefits, which is food stamps,” Ms. Walsh said. (MaineCare is the state’s version of Medicaid.) “I had no assets, nothing,” she said. “Not even a 401(k). I blew that all when I was drinking.”

In the beginning, she worked out of her home to keep expenses low. She turned to her two sisters for help, each of whom lent her $2,000. And she secured a $2,500 asset-backed loan against her Subaru — money she used to make her first payroll.