How Employment Works at RRM San Antonio: The 15-Day Expectation Explained

Residential Reentry Centers (RRCs) are built around getting someone ready to live and work in the community again. The setup is structured and supervised on purpose: it gives your loved one a safer landing spot while they work on practical reentry needs like employment counseling, job placement, and financial management assistance. In other words, work isn’t treated as “extra” at an RRC - it’s part of the core plan for rebuilding stability before release.

The policy language you’ll hear referenced most is straightforward: ordinarily, people at RRCs are expected to be employed 40 hours per week within 15 calendar days after arriving at the RRC. That’s the baseline expectation families should plan around - job searching starts quickly, and the goal is full-time work (or full-time hours) early in the placement.

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• ✓ Help connecting with a network of local employers
• ✓ Employment job fairs
• ✓ Training classes that build job-search skills (like resume writing and interview techniques)

That support is there for a reason: RRCs aren’t just a place to sleep while someone waits out the clock. They’re designed to provide supervised reentry services that push real-world readiness - finding work, holding work, and managing money responsibly. When staff help with employer connections, job fairs, and job-search classes, it’s meant to shorten the gap between “just arrived” and “back on your feet,” while still keeping the structure and oversight the program requires.

Employment also ties directly to finances while someone is at an RRC. During their stay, offenders are required to pay a subsistence fee equal to 25% of their gross income, not to exceed the contract per diem rate. Practically, that means once they’re working, part of each paycheck is expected to go toward this fee, so budgeting and steady hours matter.

If you want to help, focus on what actually moves the job search forward: share solid local job leads your loved one could realistically pursue and encourage them to take advantage of the RRC’s employment supports like job fairs and resume/interview training. For anything specific - how the 15-day expectation is being handled in their case, what types of work count toward hours, or what the placement plan looks like - direct those questions to the person’s unit team at the institution where they’re currently confined. That’s the channel the Bureau of Prisons points families to for individual RRC placement questions.