When I came home, nobody was waiting with services, support, or a roadmap…

Just the clothes on my back, a trash bag of paperwork, and a world that kept moving without me.

People think freedom is the end of the story.

But when you’ve been wrongfully convicted, coming home is actually the start of the hardest chapter.

Coming home after years of wrongful imprisonment means juggling a hundred emotions at once: joy, fear, overload, pressure, excitement, confusion, trauma all hitting at the same time. And while holding all that, you’re expected to somehow figure out how to:

Get an ID
Get housing
Get healthcare
Get a job
Get your life back

Most exonerees come home with nothing, and the system that failed them has zero services waiting. That’s why we built the Organization of Exonerees.

If nobody was going to create a support system for the people coming behind us, we would. OOE is more than an organization… it’s a lifeline!

We help people freshly home from wrongful imprisonment stabilize quickly with essentials: emergency cash, housing, mental health care, document recovery, transportation, job help, and real wraparound support. We help them navigate the red tape that would swallow them whole. We fight in Lansing to make sure this never happens again.

We build community, the kind only exonerees can create, because no one understands this journey except the people who lived it.

That peer-led, lived-experience leadership? That’s our secret sauce. That’s the power funders can’t replicate. That’s why people trust us.

Invest in healing. Invest in second chances. Invest in the people walking out of prison after surviving the unimaginable and still choosing hope!

Your support helps us welcome more exonerees home in Michigan with dignity, stability, and community.

And let me be clear: We can’t do this without you.

If you’ve followed our work… if you’ve felt moved by our stories… if you believe in justice that extends beyond the courtroom, then this is your moment to take action.

Join us. Give today. Help rebuild lives after wrongful conviction. Freedom alone is not enough. People deserve a chance to truly live again.

Thank you,

Kenneth Nixon

President, Organization of Exonerees

Coming Home with Hope

People think freedom is the end of the story.