Breaking Barriers participant Nicolas knows firsthand the importance of housing and employment support for people coming out of incarceration. Through Breaking Barriers, he found the stability he needed to pursue his education and rebuild his relationship with his son. Today he is a UC Scholar Ambassador, is working toward degrees in Addiction Counseling and Sociology, and also serves as a member of Brilliant Corners’ Participant Advisory Board.
At our recent Voices of Change event, Nicolas shared moving testimony during the candidate town hall with event attendees. Check out Nicolas’s full speech and the wise words her shared on how housing made his success possible.
Nicolas’ Testimony
Ladies & Gentlemen… My name is Nicholas Tsiamis.
When people talk about reentry, housing, and public safety, I don’t hear policy words. I hear my life.
I spent about 17 years incarcerated throughout 9 different prison terms. For almost 27 years of my life, I was caught in that cycle of going in and out like a revolving door.
When I finally came home, I didn’t have money or some big support system waiting for me. I come from a small family, My parents were immigrants coming to this country for a better future alone planting 2 seeds me and my lil brother. Today they gone and deceased resting in peace. I had burned a lot of bridges. I had experienced homelessness, struggled with addiction, and knew what it was like to have nowhere stable to go.
People hear the word “released” and think you’re free now. Go live your life.
But where are you sleeping that night?
How are you looking for work?
How are you staying clean when everybody around you is using or under the influence?
How are you rebuilding your family when you don’t even have a home to bring them into?
That is where Brilliant Corners and Breaking Barriers changed my life.
Housing gave me somewhere to finally plant my feet. It gave me the stability to stop waking up every day worried only about survival and start thinking about rebuilding my life.
And one of the greatest things that stability gave me was something money cannot replace.
After nine years of absence, I was given the opportunity to reunify with my son.
Today, my son is 17 years old, and I have the opportunity to live with him and be present in his life.
Out of everything Brilliant Corners and Breaking Barriers has helped make possible for me, that reunification with my son is the highlight.
Housing didn’t just give me a roof.
It gave me the opportunity to be a father again.
It also allowed me to focus on recovery, education, and giving back.
Today I’m a first generation college student, a Rising Scholar at Mt. San Antonio College, serving as the ICC Representative for the We Rise Recovery Club for past 2 years, graduated from the UCLA Bruin Underground Scholars Ambassador Program, actively involved with the Youth Law Center Cohort today, and now I serve on the Participant Advisory Board for Brilliant Corners and Breaking Barriers. Come Spring 2027 I will walk graduating, Dual majoring in Sociology & Addiction Counseling obtaining my Associates Degree in both. This October 4th I’ll have 3 years of being free after incarceration.
I’m also working on a documentary called The Struggle Is Real, telling the truth about what people actually face when they come home. We hope it will be used as a tool for policy makers, Sherriff s correctional facilities, CDCR pre release classes, treatment facilities and homeless shelters.
So when I speak today, I’m not only speaking for myself.
I’m thinking about the next man or woman walking out those gates with no money, no family support, and nowhere stable to live.
We invest money into getting people through the gate, into transitional housing, supervision, treatment, and reentry services.
But if that funding runs out and somebody gets pushed right back to the curb before they are stable, what did we really accomplish? Just some food for thought.”
