Spiritus Christi Prison Outreach director Jim Smith speaks about the importance of the Prison Outreach program and what we can do as a community to support our brothers and sisters in our Prison Outreach program.
Nielsen and Jennifer house alumni share their stories and how the love and support of the Prison Outreach Program has helped them along the way.
I don’t know about you but I love my home. I have my favorite blanket, my favorite coffee mug. I have access to music that sings to my heart. I’m surrounded by people that love me. I feel safe. I feel relaxed, let my defenses down and be at peace. It is my sanctuary, it is my healing space. It is so easy for us who have always had a home to take it for granted. Yet for some people a safe place to relax and unwind has not always been available to them. And in some cases it never existed. The men and women of the Prison Outreach Program that some to the Jennifer House and Nielsen House with a history of being homeless. They have lived in prison and in jail. Abandoned houses and cars. Many times in abusive relationships and sometimes with families that were not always safe or nurturing.
At Jennifer House and Nielsen House we go to great lengths to give a safe, warm haven for our residents to call home. Every night there is this wonderful meal that the residents take turns cooking. It is family styled. Everybody comes together and shares the highlights from their day. It is a place where they can relax, unwind, heal, laugh, cry, get angry, sing, dance and rebuild their lives in a safe place called home. I love coming in to one of the houses, surprising people and they are in the kitchen cooking and dancing up a storm and singing. They are just so free and so at home. This is Spiritus Christi.
Because we think it is so important for us to have these quality homes we have recently installed a brand new bathroom and shower tile. At Jennifer House we have brand new living furniture. Raymore and Flanagan helped us to totally redesign our dining room. We have a new roof at Jennifer House. The Nielsen House put a brand new indoor gym with a wonderful treadmill. The Nielsen House also has a ramp now so wheelchairs can also come in to the house. We have plans to renovate the kitchen and two bathrooms at the house.
This is all a reflection of this wonderful community and us wanting to provide a safe place of dignity to our people. In the past after the people have worked really hard on their lives at Jennifer House and Nielsen House it as always very discouraging to have them leave our homes and go in to neighborhoods that were less than safe for them to rebuild their lives. Rochester is a community with great disparity. It is a community with incredible poverty. It’s a place where quality housing is really a privilege when we believe it should be a basic human right. Affordable rent for somebody who is rebuilding their life is often meant that they often have to go in to these neighborhoods where they often didn’t have a chance to make it.
We have been working hard to address this problem at Spiritus Christi and with Home Leasing, our wonderful partners, and HUD we are very pleased that we currently have 25 apartments that alumni of Jennifer House and Nielsen House can go to once they leave. Each of these apartments is a place of dignity and quality. We have a hundred people come to our houses each year so 25 apartments certainly won’t be adequate.
On Thursday I was with a woman who had worked really hard on her life and we walked in to her new apartment. This is over at our Voters Block community. It is a beautiful sunny day, and there are big windows and the sun is shining in and the apartment had been totally renovated – it had brand new carpet. The walls freshly painted. She has a third-floor terrace to overlook the city. And as we walked along from room to room we walked in to an enormous bathroom she said, “Oh my God! I could live right here!”
And this is Spiritus Christi. A place of dignity that we want for our people. Because we know that affordable quality housing can mean the difference between success and failure. The difference between life and death for our people we are continuing to expand the number of apartments that we will be able to offer our graduates. This again is with the help of our wonderful partners – Home Leasing and now New York State is realizing that quality housing is really an issue of health care. That somebody needs to have a safe foundation, a place to call home before they can address all the other issues in their life. And so with Spiritus Christi, New York State and Home Leasing are developing 8 wonderful apartments right between East Avenue and Main Street. It is called Charlotte on the Loop. It is being built on the old interloop. We will have 8 apartment units there. This is a dream come true. These are quality places. They are just beautiful. I would move in in a minute! New York State is realizing that it is cheaper to invest in a person when they are in the community than to have somebody go back to jail or in prison.
So there is wrap around services. What we will be able to do is, in these apartments and going in to the future, we plan to have 62 apartments over the next two years. And this is with the help of New York State and Home Leasing again. Each of these apartments will be quality housing. They will have a case manager right on site where if somebody is struggling we will be there for them. If somebody looses their job and can’t pay their rent or can’t afford their RG&E bill this month we will be there to help them. We will have an office right there; we will be there to help make sure a person is successful. They will have a safety net. We are so delighted to be able to offer this.
Everything about this opportunity echoes, “We, Spiritus Christi, believe in you. We love you. Make this space your home. Relax, unwind and live your best life and soar. We are with you.”
To get where we are at this transition year we need your help, we need your prayers. This is a big step and expansion for us. We ask that you continue to pray for us and please support us if you can.
There is no better way for me to tell you about the Prison Outreach Program than to have somebody who has been at Jennifer House or Nielsen House to be able to share a bit of their experience with you. So we are very pleased to have with us today Dannelle and Jennifer. Would you please give them a warm Spiritus Christi welcome.
Dannelle
Good morning everyone. How’s everybody doing this morning? I’m going to tell you in all honesty this was a set up. I’ll just let you know right now, he didn’t tell me I was going to be doing all this.
But I would like to share a little bit of my story with you. January 4, 2018 I walked out of the penitentiary. That was after serving 15 years, 4 months, 18 days, 8 hours, 36 minute and 26 seconds. But who was counting? But after all of that it was coming from that point, it was like, “Ok, where am I going now?” I really didn’t have family to say, “Where am I going?” So the Nielsen House was my safe haven. And sometimes you would ask, “Ok, to do the time that I have done and to be where I was at…how did I get there?” So what if I told you that before I actually went to prison. In 1996 after coming from college I took the Rochester police exam to go in to the police force. With that I also had a chance to go play semi-pro ball and I actually had a chance to try out for the Buffalo Bills. So, how did you end up in prison instead of going the route that you actually went? How did I get in to that position from where I was heading with my life? I wish I could actually say, “You know what I had a bout with drugs or alcohol that took control of me.” I never had an issue with drugs or alcohol. One of the things I started doing was I started feeling sorry for myself. And the reason I started feeling sorry for myself was because of things that I endured as a child. I went through childhood abuse. I watched my mother get abused, my brother, my sisters get abused. And so I started feeling sorry for myself instead of taking the strength it had given me to go through the things I had actually made it through. A lot of people would have said Ah! But I didn’t check out, I endured to come to the point of feeling sorry for myself. One of the things the District Attorney asked me along with the conference I was in with my attorney at the time and the District of Attorney asked me, “Who comes to prison for the first time at 26 years old?” Mind you I had no other history. No juvenile record, nothing. Now I had enough speeding tickets that I could pass them out in this room. I’m just going to be honest with you. But anything other than that never had I ever been in trouble. Then he asked me if I was taking drugs. You know! I got offended. “What do you mean am I taking drugs!” But he could not understand it. And the truth of the matter is, I couldn’t understand it myself. So during that time in prison I had to do some soul searching. I had to actually say, “Dannelle, why are you here?” Not to say what my crime was, to say “You’re here because of an assault you had to a police officer, or you’re here because you did such and such.” No, why am I here? And I really had to dig down within myself and like I said I actually started feeling sorry for myself and started to see the strength I had in myself to endure the things I went through as a child. All the things I went through as a child, it didn’t break me. I came through them. Loosing my grandmother at such a young age and then living with an Aunt who was still abusive, I still came through all of that to start feeling sorry for myself. Now coming out of that situation I had to say, “Now Dannelle what were you going to do? Most of my life I said, “OK. When I walked out of that penitentiary after serving 15 years, 4 months, 18 days, 8 hours, 36 minutes and 26 seconds (again, who was counting) but to come home from that position, I said, “Prison was no longer an option.” So I had to do some things with my life. On the day I was picked up to be honest with you I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t know who was going to be picking me up from prison. They asked me if I needed a bus ticket. Sure. But where am I going? But Spiritus Christi, the Nielsen House actually sent someone to pick me up. And I remember walking out that morning and Rob Lee was there. And with that it gave me a calming, soothing thing that I had somebody there. Mind you I don’t even know this guy, never met him once in my life. But he was there to pick me up. When I went to the Nielsen House, I went through their door and I sit in the office with John their Director, again never met him before but he welcomed me there. A year prior to me being released I met with Jim Smith. He came down to the prison and he said, “Give us a shot.” And so I did that and from that time there was things that I really needed to do within myself because I wanted to see myself do better. So I went to a point of wanting to help people so I got certified as a recovery coach. Coming from that I went to cosmetology school and got my degree in cosmetology. As of November of 2018 I took my state boards and am now a licenses cosmetologist. Another thing is that I am getting certified as fitness trainer and as of November 1, 2018 I became a staff member of the Nielsen House. The same place that took me in.
I sit sometimes and I get beat down on myself, and I sit sometimes and think, what is my true potential? The fact of the matter is that I actually came through that, as we all have troubles. But I actually said instead of feeling sorry for myself, tap in to what I really am. So with that I would like to thank all of the supporters of the Prison Outreach, all of the members of the Spiritus Christi Church, I thank Jim Smith, John Olsen, Rob Lee and even Sarah Lee, the Director over at the female’s house because without all of your support they honestly couldn’t do anything. With that I would like to thank everybody for your support.
Jennifer
Good morning. Let me start by saying that February 19, I celebrated by being one year clean. Next month I will graduate drug court. I have completed drug and alcohol treatment, mental health treatment and have been off of the Vivitrol shot for 3 months. I have obtained a professional 9 to 5 job, reunited with my family and son and successfully completed the Jennifer House. I am not saying any of this to brag, I am just saying this because it wasn’t always this way. When I arrived at Jennifer House two years ago, I was beyond broken. I had just finished serving a six-month sentence at the Monroe County Jail for violating probation and for stealing from my family to the point where they had to file for bankruptcy. I had scars from shooting heroine and cocaine all over my arms and legs and I was mentally and emotionally broken. I was estranged from my family and I felt lost when I arrived at the Jennifer House. Like I didn’t belong anywhere. But Sarah Lee made me feel at home which I hadn’t felt in a long time. She told me that Jennifer House would always be my home and that stuck with me. Even though I wasn’t ready at that time seeds were planted in the few months that I was there. You see, I am stubborn and have to learn things the hard way and ended up back out there. But all the time I was out there I always ,remembered those words Sarah would often say to me, that Jennifer House would always be my home. So periodically she would stay in touch and would ask me if I was ready. The time came after spending Christmas getting high and ending up in a nasty hotel room about to be put back out on the street, I had had enough. I went to detox and when I was finished there I called Sarah from a parking lot in Niagara Falls and she was there to pick me up. She brought me to turn myself in to the Monroe Country Jail where I sat for 60 days and then she called for me. I went back to the Jennifer House and when I got there it felt like I never left because I knew I was home. Even when it felt like the whole world had turned its back on me, I knew in my heart I still had a place at the Jennifer House and that I will never forget. Thank you Sarah, Jim, the Jennifer House staff and everyone who contributes. You have been an intricate part in saving my life and helping me become the person I knew I could be.
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