Mecklenburg commissioner urges area hospitals to consider hiring former criminals

Mecklenburg County commissioner Pat Cotham this week urged three health care CEOs to consider hiring people with criminal records as a way to give them a second chance.

Cotham, citing concerns for people living in underserved areas, made the request to the chief executives of Atrium Health, Novant Health and Premier during a Charlotte Chamber health care summit Wednesday.

"I just wondered ... if you are open to helping them become one of your valued employees," said Cotham, who noted her experience helping people with criminal records find jobs before she became commissioner. "Many of them have made big changes in their lives."

Charlotte leaders have been focused on economic mobility since a 2014 study from Harvard and the University of California at Berkeley. That report found poor children in Charlotte have the worst odds of those in any big U.S. city to lift themselves out of poverty.

Charlotte-based Atrium and Winston-Salem-based Novant are cooperating to identify ways both hospital systems can help certain ZIP codes in Charlotte facing economic mobility and other challenges, Novant CEO Carl Armato said.

"We're actually working together to find jobs in our health systems that can help with that economic mobility and change, which it may include the people that you just described," Armato said.

"It may be that they qualify for some of the positions that we're creating to try and help people access new income levels and new potential growth opportunities inside our organizations," Armato said, though he did not detail the types of jobs.

But the issue is also a challenging one, said Susan DeVore, CEO of Premier, a Charlotte-based firm that serves health care companies.

"You have to ensure you're protecting the rest of your employees and your liability, honestly," DeVore said.

"I think you have to be really sure that the investment's been made, the turnaround has occurred and then I think finding opportunities to engage those folks in any employer — we're all focused on that," she said. "But we have to balance it with the potential risk that you put in place on the company or the other employees."

Similarly, Atrium CEO Gene Woods said it's important that health care providers take steps to ensure patient safety, but he also said Atrium is open to looking for ways to give people second chances and put them back into the workforce.

This story was originally published April 6, 2018 at 12:30 PM with the headline "Mecklenburg commissioner urges area hospitals to consider hiring former criminals."