100+ Solar Certifications: Inside Chicago's Prison-to-Clean-Energy Pipeline

More than 100 people have earned clean energy industry certifications through Safer Foundation training in the past three years, and 79 of them have landed jobs in the sector. The figures come from Katrice Harris, training and employment account executive at the Chicago nonprofit, and they anchor one of the most concrete workforce experiments in Illinois' clean energy transition.

The program runs inside a brick building on Chicago's West Side, once part of the sprawling Sears Roebuck campus. The building houses an adult transitional center — a halfway home for 250 men completing sentences and preparing for reentry. Down the hallway from their living quarters, a high-ceilinged former gymnasium holds a two-story under-construction mock-up house, complete with exposed insulation and electric fixtures, where trainees learn the trade.

"They learn how to wire the home and work with an inverter, gaining experience with the electrical side of solar power," said Mark Yates, Safer's president and CEO. The mock-up, he said, goes beyond what many solar trainings offer. Some trainees fear heights, so the program lets them work on a roof while clipped into safety harnesses.

What does the training involve?

Trainees receive stipends for participating. The program runs one month of basic skills followed by three to six weeks of training in either solar or weatherization, with possible pre-apprenticeships that can lead to labor union jobs.

"The types of individuals we serve encounter a little more trouble with barriers, but we have staff fully certified and trained to help push to get these clients employed," Harris said. "The job development team goes out and makes connections with employers, where they build relationships and create MOUs where employers agree to hire these clients and give them a second chance."

The wraparound services are extensive. Safer offers:

• remedial education, workplace and financial literacy training
• substance abuse recovery and anger management, which some trainees need to comply with court mandates
• an on-site food pantry styled as a grocery store, with personal shoppers
• counseling and storage for belongings while clients work
• 148 units of subsidized and affordable housing for unhoused clients

Yates said people with criminal convictions are often "better workers" than average, "because they feel this is their one and only chance to get something right." Many were "incarcerated beyond technology advances," he noted, and must learn skills as basic as using a smartphone alongside solar technology.

Which laws and employers back it?

The funding trail runs through Springfield. Safer received a state solar training grant created by the 2017 Future Energy Jobs Act and a federal solar training grant in 2021. Since 2024, it has been among the clean energy workforce hubs created and funded by the state's 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act.

Illinois law prioritizes people from marginalized communities, including those involved with the criminal justice or foster care systems and residents of "equity eligible" areas. The statute also created hiring incentives for employers who take on workers meeting the equity criteria — a critical lever, since companies are often reluctant to hire people with convictions or gaps in work history. Safer's employer relationships include utility-scale developer Millennium Solar Electric and residential installer SunRun.

About three-quarters of Safer's solar trainees so far have been justice-involved. The organization prioritizes Chicago's South Side and West Side, areas with disproportionate numbers of low-income communities and a history of disinvestment.

From trainee to instructor

Vincent Jones, 41, applied while between jobs after learning about the program from a relative. He used the food pantry, received a laptop, and got help expunging a record of a legal problem that did not involve incarceration. Since graduating last fall, he has earned multiple solar certifications and worked in residential and utility-scale installation and maintenance, including a stint in Dallas with developer RWE.

"They were not positions that lasted a long time, but enough to give me a little experience," Jones said. He now instructs state clean energy trainings, including at a youth development academy on the South Side. "Even though I like working in the field, I think helping to prepare others is my calling — the vocational realm where I can teach others to further themselves."

What does this change for the pipeline?

Safer launched its own construction company in 2016, with trainees-turned-employees doing renovation and carpentry; weatherization and solar installation grew from that base. The organization also holds a state grant to run trainings inside an Illinois prison for people within three years of release, who will be routed to Safer for mentorship and employer connections upon release.

The next milestone to watch is placement volume: whether the 79 hires of the past three years scale as CEJA-funded hubs mature, and whether employer MOUs convert the state's equity incentives into durable solar-sector jobs.