REENTRY PLANNING BEGINS: HOUSING

Building a personalized plan together.

This month we’ll begin two key pieces of reentry planning. These are creative conversations with your returning partner. 

First, we’ll reintroduce our Stones & Layers model for building a holistic, personalized reentry plan with our friend—together.

Second, we’ll focus this month on the first issue under the “Stones” list: Release Housing.

Let’s go.

BUILDING A REENTRY PLAN—TOGETHER

If you came to our Kickoff Orientation, you know how we at Underground Ministries frame both the spiritual mystery of the divine work of transformation in all of us, and the social work mechanics of prison reentry—all within the story of Lazarus’ resurrection. 

There are so many pieces to reentry planning that all the details can be overwhelming. So framing it all in this resurrection story—Jesus raising Lazarus from the tombs, and a community helping roll the barriers away—helps us see the simple power of what we’re doing.

It also keeps our focus on a larger miracle of resurrection that God is initiating, that we can’t force. It reminds us that a mystery is happening in the darkness between God and God’s friend (yes, even if your incarcerated partner does not have a recognizable belief system or prayer life), and that we are invited to draw close and join the miracle. 

This image of Lazarus’ resurrection also helps gather all the reentry barriers—like housing, courts and case numbers and debt, driver’s license requirements, appointments, parole officers, employment, and more—under one simple image: these are just the heavy stones to roll away from today’s tomb system. 

They seal folks inside the American underground. 

So this is a tool we at Underground Ministries have been refining for the last several years, to keep track of the details of each individual we accompany, while not losing the larger story. It also helps many of the men and women we’re working with make a release plan that 

1. Starts with their deepest sense of call, and desire to a new life,

2. Identifies all the “stones” and barriers we’ll be working to roll away for months, together,

3. While also addressing the old protective “layers”—addictions, toxic relationships, false identities—that have protected them in the dark, but have also kept them bound and now need to be shed.

Let’s practice those three movements. Their desires and sense of call and vision is what drives them forward. We just help roll away these stones, embodying Jesus’ embrace as they emerge. And together, we name and unravel the protective layers we all have that cover (and bind) our true selves.

Great.

Take a look at the Stones and Layers page that your friend filled out when they applied to One Parish One Prisoner. If you don’t have it in the materials you received at the orientation, have your team’s convener reach out to us (info@undergroundministries) for the Stones and Layers document your friend filled out months ago. We have it scanned.

This is your template for building a personalized, holistic reentry plan. Your releasing friend filled this out as part of their application to One Parish One Prisoner. Now is your turn to fill it out. You don’t have to pass your completed forms around the table at your next team meeting, but share as you are able. Honor the vulnerability that your Releasing Friend offered so early in the process.

IT TAKES A TEAM

As you look at the “STONES” list of common reentry barriers in the Stones and Layers form, you’ll see that not just one person can handle all of these on their own!

1. Housing

2. Immigration

3. DOC Probabtion/Supervision

4. Sex Offense Registry

5. ID / Social Security Card

6. Driver’s License

7. Court Debt, Collections

8. Drug & Alcohol Treatment

9. Employment

10. Medical / Mental Health Needs

11. Child Support Payment / Custody of Children

12. Transportation

That’s why Jesus called a community to come roll away that huge stone over Lazarus’ tomb. You starting to see what we’ve been talking about? The structures blocking a resurrected life from fully breaking out of the underworld are immense.

All hands on deck to roll these stones away! It will require every member on your team rolling up their sleeves and taking on one of these “stones.”

In next month’s module, we’ll show you how we broke these down into 5-6 roles, and each team member can choose one and break off into a separate page of more detailed guidance in that realm.

Housing will be one.

But this month, before one person takes the lead on this reentry barrier, we are inviting you all as a team to learn about housing. Yes, warm up on the first one together. But also because it’s something your incarcerated friend will need to have figured out very soon.

HOUSING

When facing release from prison, the most basic question for every incarcerated person is: Where am I gonna live? What’s my release address?

What makes this even more pressing is that DOC requires an approved release address roughly three months before their ERD (estimated release date). You literally can’t get out of prison without an approved release address. Many folks facing release just want an address to submit so they can get out, with little intention of actually living there. 

We are about much more than finding an address. Most One Parish One Prisoner incarcerated applicants should be in a different frame of mind: more focused on finding the right housing that supports their healthy reentry and gives them the best chance at starting their best life. 

(*If your friend is releasing to a Work Release program ahead of their technical “release date,” possibly part of WA’s growing Graduated Reentry program, make sure to jump to the Work Release segment below.)

COMMON RELEASE HOUSING OPTIONS

You as a team can help your person think through, contact, and secure one or two good housing situations, starting now. Here are the most common options to present and discuss with your releasing friend.

• Live With Family - This isn’t as easy as it sounds. Many folks leaving prison don’t have good relationship with family members. Even if they’re around, well, it’s complicated. Sometimes starting a new, sober life often means making a break from the very environments that helped put them in prison. Family members’ addresses are sometimes not approved by a DOC house inspection (existing residents may have felony charges, firearms, known drug activity, etc). Maybe your friend has a romantic partner offering their home as a release address option, but your friend feels conflicted about whether that’s really the best way to start their new life.

  You’re not the parent or boss, but ask good questions as good friends would.
  Maybe a family situation is just right. You can help communicate with the family, if nearby, and build relationship with them, too! Ask if it’s OK to visit the home/family. Invite the family member or loved one to a team meeting, help them feel embraced and supported as well.
  
  

• Oxford Houses - These resident-run, clean-and-sober, group houses are in most counties. There’s no staffing, no sign out front. They are resident-run, like Twelve Step meetings. The only conditions are a strong commitment to addiction recovery and paying rent (usually around $500/mo). There are random UA’s (urine analyses), required Twelve Step meetings, and house meetings.

  But there are wait lists, and applying from prison is tricky. If your friend wants it, it’s a good idea to help locate local Oxford Houses on OXFORDVACANCIES.COM, mail your friend the application, and you can facilitate their “reentry application” to get on a few wait lists months before release.

  KEY: many Oxford Houses assume the only way a “reentry” applicant can qualify is if they have a DOC Housing Voucher for the initial down payment and first month’s rent. Be sure to tell your contact at the local Oxford house—and your friend, to tell their in-prison “counselor”—that part of the One Parish One Prisoner program is for your team to help cover that cost when it comes, IF there’s no DOC voucher. The prison and Oxford reentry nexus has rarely seen something like you all! You have to explain your team’s readiness to pay the deposit ahead of your friend’s release date—so they can release into housing, smoothly. This is a major “stone” blocking the reentry process—a stone your church can help roll away.

  
  

• Recovery or Transitional Home - Many communities have some local residential recovery programs. These are usually non-profit programs, with a stronger addiction-recovery (and often faith) focus. Your friend may be turned off by a home with a manager and structured program. Or your friend might feel that’s exactly what they’re looking for—to grow, have a stable and sober environment, with some daily support to thrive.
  
  

• Start asking around: Who knows of good recovery homes, good housing programs or transitional housing? Where would you start? It’s a great chance to get to know your community more, learn about good (and some not so good) work happening close to you. Follow good word of mouth, and look out for fundamentalist outfits that have a hyper controlling feel, with poor facilities and require mouthing pieties to keep your housing. Delegate one person on the team to learn more, and maybe be an intermediary between your friend and the program—for photos, applications, advocacy to get taken seriously as a candidate.

Why not have the One Parish One Prisoner team/church offer a place to live?

It’s a good question. 

When we first started our One Parish One Prisoner experiments, our hope and assumption was that every church has someone with a room or cottage or downstairs apartment or something to rent. After all, most faith communities can supply a used car, an employment connection in the congregation, etc. What better way to serve someone coming home from prison?

There’s too much power in being someone’s landlord. It puts you in a bind: you need to enforce basic standards of behavior, which they might fail. And if they were to relapse on an old addiction, or fail to pay rent, you are not the ones they can come to for mercy and accompaniment, but you’re the landlord/enforcer they need to avoid. Months of deep relationship building is out the window. 

So our policy is NOT offering housing directly with your church or One Parish One Prisoner team members.

Who pays early rent?

This is the largest purpose or use of your ROLL AWAY THE STONE FUND you’ll be putting together at the important WELCOME HOME EVENT: covering the first 2-3 months of rent for release housing (often around $500/mo). No more than three months—in our One Parish One Prisoner model.

Once your team works with your friend to locate good housing, once you help your friend apply and get accepted, you should feel good as a team helping close that gap and paying rent for the first month to save their spot and secure a “RELEASE ADDRESS.” Then a second and third month. Where it stops—and their employment should be rolling, first checks coming in.

This brings us to a preview of the second most urgent question facing folks releasing from prison into the wider society:

EMPLOYMENT

There is an entire module on employment coming up, and our Underground Employment model, further down the road.

But it’s good to get a basic preview of the One Parish One Prisoner approach to employment now, to consider as a team and with your friend.

We at Underground Ministries have always strongly encouraged returning men and women to NOT rush into full-time employment right away.

Yes, we’re aware this goes against all the voices in society and prison that have yelled at them for years: “Get out there and get a job!”

This is actually a cruel and unrealistic expectation barked into the hearts of men and women who are only stepping out of the prison walls—but still buried beneath so many civic barriers.

REENTRY IS A FULL-TIME JOB

Getting on your feet, doing reentry, rolling away the many stones—all to set up your life in modern society—is a full-time job the first month (if you’re quick).

There’s probation appointments with your parole officer, drug and mental health evaluations to schedule and attend. You’re setting up your health insurance, getting your social security card, reopening relationships, sorting out financial obstacles. You’re finding transportation to get to all these obligations. You’re studying for your driver’s license, paying for the exams and relicensing fees, paying off old courts’ holds on your license. You’re stressing about all of this, trying to keep the dates and times in your mental calendar—all while trying to find a job??

Really?

This is why so many men and women never emerge out of the underground: they have to cut corners, skip appointments, never get their license or resolve old court matters . . . because they finally got some 50-hour-a-week job. Just to pay some rent and afford these fines they face.

This is a crazy gauntlet of services and schedules and finances to navigate. Something most of us could hardly do, if we were just stepping out of prison with nothing.

The incredible anxiety, intimidation and overwhelm here leads many men and women to quickly disappear into the shadows, usually returning to their familiar drug for self-medication and numbing, within a week or two.

You start to understand why people go back to prison so fast. Why recidivism is so high.

Over our years of accompanying folks through reentry, we have found a better way. Rebuilding your life, adjusting, resurrecting—it’s not overnight.

It takes time to attend treatment classes, work on your priorities, keep mental health appointments, regularly exercise, spend time with your kids, have time to read, rest, process emotions, and spend time with your One Parish One Prisoner team through the rollercoaster.

We go slow. We are here to walk with them.

(We have an Accompaniment Through the System module to guide your team in this adventure through social services, after release.)

Your team will do some fundraising in the months ahead to cover initial expenses (early rent, court debt, clothes, a phone, thanks to your Rolling Away the Stone Fund and Welcome Home Basket) so that your person can do this more important reentry work and not have to rush into full-time employment.

There’s more in the modules ahead on other tasks and details, but these are common questions you’ll be wondering now, and we want you to know the basic plan.

Meanwhile, your team can consider potential employers who would hire your person part-to-full-time when they are ready, and when they have their driver’s license. 

We also encourage teams to line up some “side jobs” ahead of time—piecemeal work at the church building, someone’s garden or property project, a day or two a week, under the table—to get some small, dignified income with good people you know. There’s no stress here. And there’s lots of opportunities for time together, building more relationships in your network.

WORK RELEASE?

If your person has been admitted to a work release program, wonderful! That means they spend up to six of their last months in prison in a high-custody “house” closer to home, where they are expected to get a job and work all day. This helps our friends adjust to life outside the major prison facilities, get some work experience and structure going, while earning money to pay off some program expenses and finally save up a bit of a nest egg their last month or two.

Here’s some alterations to the plan:

• With that nest egg of money they’ll have saved, they will be able to pay their first months’ rent at the next housing location. That’s a great use of their earnings! You should still fundraise as a parish for the “Roll Away the Stone Fund”—there are many other costs they’ll face:

  • Move-in costs at a new apartment/home (first/last month’s rent + deposit)

  • Medical bills

  • Debt

  • Insurance

• When our friends complete Work Release, they are often itching to keep working full time—unlike our recommended path of easing into part time work. It’s hard to convince someone finally out of prison, finally working . . . to hit the brakes and go find something with less income! With these friends, we need to remind them of a few things:

  • Though they’re in Work Release, commuting to work, feeling great, they aren’t “out” yet. Many of our friends have stepped out of the heavy work release structure only to fall flat on their faces—when no staff is requiring them to be out of bed at a certain hour, home by another, lights out at another. Full release, freedom to go anywhere whenever . . . is up ahead. And hard. “Don’t get overconfident,” we say. “It’s still a fragile road ahead.”

  • When they fully release and leave work release, they will still often have to do drug and alcohol treatment/evaluations, mental health evaluations, get their driver’s license. If they’re working full time, when will they be able to do all this reentry work? Weekends? Meet up with your team members for appointments?

  • Sometimes this reality sinks in, and we help them talk to employers to give them one day off each week (shortened schedule) for a few months: a Tuesday to schedule their appointments, go to offices, work on license, etc.

You can figure it out together. Just have these conversations ahead of time. As a team.

THEY ARE WORTH IT

They’re not just a cog in a utilitarian society. They are a full human being coming back to life in society. They are worth taking it slow, worth all this work. Keep reminding your friend of this. It’s the heart of God made flesh in your team.

ACTION STEPS THIS MONTH

• PRINT AND MAIL this module, and a fresh Stones and Layers form, to your friend. Be on the same page.

• START THE HOUSING CONVERSATION WITH YOUR FRIEND

  Ask your friend what their initial ideas are. 

  Ask what kind of environment they think will need to start the life they seek. 

  Ask if you as a team can help think through their options with them, and help research and connect them with good local options.

• LOOK INTO LOCAL OXFORD HOUSES AND RECOVERY/TRANSITIONAL HOMES

  Brainstorm at your team meeting, with questions below. But it’s good for everyone to start asking around, getting a feel for the (lack of) housing options for people leaving the underground are in your community.

• PRAY about wisdom in identifying and connecting with the best housing option with your friend. Don’t rush. Don’t assume that the first idea is what will happen. Keep a few doors open. 

FOR DISCUSSION

• What do you already know about your person’s housing ideas? Make that the topic of conversation in letters and calls this month. Let their desires lead. Ask questions.

• Can you take photos, learn more info, share with your incarcerated friend and be a collaborative support for their decision? 

• Look over the Stones and Layers document. What can you pencil in, individually and together, with what you’ve learned about your person’s dreams, goals, barriers, and binding layers? Use a pencil, as what we learn is always evolving in these categories. Make one shared copy to build on in the months to come.

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