The Timeline Project — Press & EPK

The story behind Yusef Wiley and Timelist Group.

An in-development feature documentary.

Electronic press kit for producers, journalists, and editors covering Lived Experience leadership, civic impact, and reentry work at portfolio scale.

The Story

Four stages — the human through-line.

The Timeline Project is structured as a four-act story. Each act is rooted in a real moment in Yusef Wiley's life and the lived reentry experience that became Timelist Group.

Act I

The Beginning — Overcoming Adversity

Years inside the California corrections system, the cost of that chapter on family and neighborhood, and what it takes to make a first clean exit. The story the documentary opens with is personal — not a parable.

Act II

The Turning Point — Finding Purpose

The choice to become a peer organizer inside CDCR: turning the lived experience into service for the person on either side of the bunk. The frame becomes less about survival and more about what the next person coming out actually needs to walk into.

Act III

The Building — Creating Timelist Group

A peer-led initiative inside CDCR in 2007 → 501(c)(3) status in 2013 → operations rooted in Lancaster / Antelope Valley from 2017 forward → today's operating reality of California's CalAIM Justice-Involved contracts going live.

Act IV

The Legacy — A Better Future

Author of If I Knew Then and What I Know Now, Founder & Executive Director of Timelist Group, and the operating stakes behind the story — $10M+ annual budget, 100+ team, 171+ reentry beds across LA County.

Founder Bio

Yusef Andre Wiley.

Yusef Wiley — author of If I Knew Then and What I Know Now, keynote speaker, Founder & Executive Director of Timelist Group

Yusef Wiley founded Timelist Group in 2007 as a peer-led initiative inside CDCR, achieved 501(c)(3) status in 2013, and rooted operations in the Antelope Valley from 2017 forward. He is the author of If I Knew Then and What I Know Now and the Founder & Executive Director of Timelist Group, Inc. He works as a consultant and strategic advisor, and as an advocate for second chances, leadership, and community transformation.

  • $9.5M active program budget
  • 9 LA County housing sites operated
  • $63K/month utility load across the housing portfolio
  • CalAIM Justice-Involved — delivered as a working service line
  • ~49K Instagram followers
  • Authority Magazine feature
  • All American Speakers Bureau listing

2026 Impact Snapshot

A year of purpose. Growth. Impact.

Timelist Group 2026 recap — $10M+ annual budget, 100+ team, 86 to 171+ beds across LA County including new women's sites

Mission. TimeList Group is a non-profit reentry organization dedicated to serving individuals, families, and communities impacted by the criminal justice system and barriers to employment.

Vision. Owning our past — creating our future.

Legacy. A second-chance infrastructure durable enough that the next person coming home walks into something already built.

The Timeline Project — Documentary

One-sheet for producers and editors.

The Timeline Project feature documentary one-sheet — produced with Dr. Holly Carter of Relevé Entertainment in partnership with Timelist Group, Relevé Entertainment, and Merge TV

Title: The Timeline Project

Format: Feature documentary (in development)

Producer: Dr. Holly Carter, Relevé Entertainment

Partners: Timelist Group, Inc. · Relevé Entertainment · Merge TV

Journey

The Beginning → The Turning Point → The Building → The Legacy. Four acts that frame a life lived and a civic operation built from inside that life — leading with transformation, not spectacle.

Impact Areas

Health Equity Criminal Justice Reform Housing & Homelessness Economic Opportunity Youth & Next Gen Civic Engagement & Policy Change Faith & Community Black Excellence & Innovation

Deliverables

  • 90-minute feature documentary
  • 6-part documentary series
  • Podcast / digital conversations
  • Educational curriculum & discussion guide
  • Community screening tour & events
  • Digital shorts & social content

Recent Appearances

On stage and on the record.

Yusef Wiley on a recent panel with two other speakers

Selected appearances

  • Authority Magazine feature
  • All American Speakers Bureau listing

[This section is updated as new appearances are added.]

Fact Sheet

The numbers behind the story.

A producer- and editor-ready snapshot of Timelist Group's operating scale, history, and media footprint.

Operating scale

$10M+

Annual operating budget (2026)

Team

100+

Team members across the portfolio

Housing capacity

171+

Reentry beds across LA County (up from 86)

Sites operated

9

LA County housing sites

Utility burden

$63K/mo

Utility load across the housing portfolio

Founded

2007

Founded as a peer-led initiative inside CDCR

501(c)(3) status

2013

Granted 501(c)(3) status

Headquarters

2017

Operations rooted in Lancaster / Antelope Valley

Service line

CalAIM

California's Justice-Involved service line — delivered

Roadmap

JCOD

Contracting roadmap per current state posture

Reach

~49K

Instagram followers

Books

2

If I Knew Then and What I Know Now

Press Release Language

Copy-ready language for journalists.

Three paragraphs a writer or editor can paraphrase verbatim — anchored on the story, not the pitch.

Yusef Andre Wiley founded Timelist Group, Inc. in 2007 as a peer-led initiative inside CDCR. Today he leads a portfolio that includes 9 LA County housing sites carrying a $63,000-per-month utility burden, the CalAIM Justice-Involved service line, and a transitional-workforce model built around the people it serves. He is the author of If I Knew Then and What I Know Now.

In 2026 the organization crossed $10M in annual operating budget and 100 team members, scaling housing capacity from 86 to 171+ reentry beds across LA County — including new women's sites — and launching Transpire 2.0, ChiefDesk, and RoamSmart as adjacent ventures that deepen the reentry infrastructure.

The Timeline Project, an in-development feature documentary produced with Dr. Holly Carter of Relevé Entertainment and partners Timelist Group, Relevé Entertainment, and Merge TV, follows Wiley's four-act arc — The Beginning, The Turning Point, The Building, The Legacy — and frames the documentary's posture less as a campaign story than as a working answer to one civic question: what does durable second-chance infrastructure look like.

Interview Topics

Conversations Yusef is ready to step into.

Each topic is rooted in the same operating reality — CalAIM practice, reentry housing at portfolio scale, the workforce pipeline that follows, and what peer-led design actually buys you.

Board Retreat

CalAIM Justice-Involved: From Policy to Practice

How California's CalAIM Justice-Involved initiative moved from a state policy frame into a working service line — Enhanced Care Management enrollment, Community Supports navigation, and the behavioral-health engagement layer that actually holds participants in care.

Board Retreat

Reentry Housing as the Foundation for Everything Else

Why stable housing is the first domino for every other reentry outcome — employment, treatment, family reconnection — and what it takes to operate licensed reentry housing capacity at portfolio scale.

Board Retreat

LADWP Direct Install: Relieving the Utility Burden on Reentry Sites

What bringing the LADWP Direct Install program into nine LA County housing sites means in practice — and why moving the utility burden off program dollars is one of the highest-leverage operational moves a reentry operator can make.

Board Retreat

SOMAH and Multifamily Affordable Housing Solar

How SOMAH's multifamily affordable housing solar program intersects with reentry housing — CalEnviroScreen's disadvantaged-community lens as the eligibility frame, and what that means for operators in qualifying census tracts.

Current Program

Reentry is Everyone's Business

Why community reentry outcomes depend on employers, congregations, and neighbors — not just case managers — and what it actually takes to bring the rest of the community into the work.

Current Program

Workforce Development for the Justice-Involved

The JCOD / Timelist Academy model: pairing returning residents with paid transitional work, mentoring, and case management that lets them build a real record and convert a credential into a living-wage job.

Current Program

Homeless Housing as a Key Access Point

Why immediate, stable housing is the on-ramp to everything else we do — and what it takes operationally to keep that on-ramp open at the volume a real reentry pipeline demands.

Current Program

Creating Systems That Heal and Empower

A practitioner-level look at building service systems where the people closest to the problem set the terms — peer-led design, lived-experience operators, and the structural changes that make it durable.

Press Kit Request

Request the full press kit.

Tell us what you're covering and we'll send the full press kit — bios, high-res images, one-sheet PDF, and recent coverage links — within two business days.

We respond within two business days.

www.timelistgroup.org | info@timelistgroup.org | (213) 544-6220