It’s never easy to re-enter society upon being released from prison, and even ex-offenders lucky enough to secure a job right away face a challenge few may know about: It can take weeks for their first paycheck to arrive.

In the interim, many face the temptation to chase “fast money” in the streets — and risk a return to the penal system — Rep. Elijah E. Cummings told a group of reporters in Upton Saturday.

“It’s a vicious cycle we’ve got to figure out how to break,” Cummings said as part of “Connect,” a 3 1/2-hour event sponsored by the Baltimore mayor’s office aimed at exploring ways of reducing violence in the city. “With this program I feel we’re on the road to addressing a lot of [similar] problems people have.”

The program he referred to is the Office of African American Male Engagement, an initiative Baltimore Mayor Catherine E. Pugh launched last year to expand mentoring and other services aimed at helping African-American boys and men avoid falling prey to crime and violence.

The event at Furman L.Templeton Elementary School on Pennsylvania Ave. brought 50 local African-American men together with Cummings, Pugh and other community leaders for a round-table discussion on violence and how to address it.

Dozens of community resource providers then took part in a resource fair at the school, sharing information with visitors on job training, mental-health and substance-abuse treatment, employment opportunities, parent-training programs and more.

Pugh called it “a great coming-out for the office of African-American Male Engagement,” a program that got underway in February.

Led by director Andrey Bundley, the former city high school principal and mayoral candidate, and James Green, Jr., who serves as manager of community engagement and education, the group has spent months soliciting ideas in meetings with city residents and community leaders.

They invited some of those residents, and others from the neighborhood around the school, to the roundtable, which was closed to the press.

“These are people who don’t normally find themselves in a space with a congressman or a mayor, and they were able to share their thoughts in that space,” Green said.

At a press conference immediately afterward, Cummings told reporters the group had discussed a range of issues, including the persistent problem of “black-on-black” crime.

The roundtable, he said, reinforced the idea that many vulnerable young men need better resources — job opportunities, employment training, even transportation to and from work.

Cummings spoke of developing “sustainable” help for the city’s youth — the kind of support that will last more than a short time — and told Pugh he would support her initiative, said to be one of the first of its kind in the U.S.

“Mayor, I am convinced that if we do [this] right here, this kind of model will spread all over the country,” he said. “I’m so glad to have a partner who considers this to be a No. 1 priority. I’m going to give this everything I’ve got.”

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