Reentry advocates urge Council to keep ORCA independent as mayor moves office into EOM

Chairman Robert White called a Committee on Housing budget oversight hearing on June 4 to review the mayor’s FY2026 proposals for the Mayor’s Office on Returning Citizens Affairs (ORCA or MORCA) and related programs. The hearing drew returning citizens, community providers and policy groups who warned that folding MORCA into the Executive Office of the Mayor (EOM) and cutting its funding would erode services for people leaving incarceration.

Advocates said the proposal would weaken a dedicated reentry office. “I urge the council to reject the proposal to absorb the Office of Returning Citizens Affairs into the Executive Office of the Mayor and to restore its full funding,” said Zachary Rigone, policy director at the National Returning Network for Returning Citizens. Rigone said the proposed budget “strips nearly a third of ORCA’s funding” while expecting it to continue the same level of work and that the office’s public identity and trust built with returning residents would be lost if it were buried inside a larger agency.

Residents and community providers described programs that rely on MORCA’s coordination. Samuel Buggs, a Jubilee Housing board member and formerly…