Image: Being Susan Burton
Burton told the Ford Foundation that locking up a woman costs $75,000 a year, yet she is then sent back to her community with $200, no identification, no Social Security card and nowhere to live. She said women’s incarceration in the United States has risen by more than 700 per cent since 1980, with a reoffending rate above 70 per cent. A New Way of Life says Michael Towler was struggling to find meaningful work after the 2008 financial crash when he was referred to Burton. He began as a part-time bookkeeper, moved up to full-time accountant, became co-director in 2018 and chief executive in 2026. She was rehired as an administrative assistant afterwards, then worked as a family reunification case manager and office manager before becoming deputy director in 2026.
Burton said it felt like magic, yet it was simply what every household should offer, support, welcome, love and appreciation. In her words, women in that position are excluded and discriminated against, but “we are not throwaway people”. She would go to the bus station where women were leaving prison, meet them there and offer a bed in her own house. The organisation began as a single reentry home in South Los Angeles. More women kept arriving, many of them recovering from substance misuse, the effects of incarceration or childhood trauma, and together they formed a community that supported its members. Her organisation’s rate is around one per cent, she added, at less than a third of the cost of prison. For that money, it helps women get their children back, return to school or higher education, find work and open a savings account. Her stated hope is a national network of safe homes for women returning to their communities. Pamela Marshall was a single mother when a transitional welfare-to-work programme connected her with Burton.