I just got word the other day that a charity that has been doing almost all of the funding for recovering addicts in Boise has frozen all of their funding on halfway houses. For those who don’t know, halfway houses are like hotels for people who just got out of prison and rehab. They are made to provide a stable and supervised environment to make the transition from captivity to freedom a little easier.
If it wasn’t for these places, people with extreme addictions might feel a strong “culture shock” once they are released. This means that the difference between being “inside” and being “outside” is so severe that they panic briefly. In this brief panic, many addicts will go back to what they know despite years of drug and alcohol treatment and with all of the reasons in the world to stay clean. If you don’t suffer from an addiction, you might say, “so what? I don’t see how this affects me.” I’m going to help you understand how this affects the community as a whole.
Let’s say a man who has engaged in drug abuse for 30 years was in prison for 5 years. The last 2 years he engaged in treatment programs so that he could make something of himself later in life. Because of his 2 years of hard effort and his obvious desire to change for the better, the parole board agrees to let him out of prison on parole for 2 more years. This is under the condition that he goes to a halfway house for 6 months and continues treatment for the remainder of the 2 years.
When it comes time for his release, he has a bed waiting for him at a halfway house and a non-profit has agreed to fund his housing and treatment for the first 3 months or until he gets a job. He carries his only possessions, the clothes in which he was arrested, as he walks 2 miles to the halfway house from the county jail he was officially released at. He checks in with the house’s manager and lays down for a nap. He’s finally ready to start his new life.
A month later, he’s doing well with treatment, but he finds that his felony has made it very difficult for him to find a job. The current state of the job market hasn’t helped at all. Despite his hundreds of applications, he has yet to get a call back. After a frustrating day of job hunting, he gets home and finds a letter waiting for him on his door. The same letter appears to be on half of the doors at the halfway house. It reads “due to budget cutbacks and the economy, we will no longer be able to fund your treatment and housing. Unless you can pay your own way, you will be expected to move within 14 days.” This is bad news for him, as all of his family lives in a state that he’s not allowed to go to because of parole. In two weeks, he is forced to try his luck at a homeless shelter.
When he gets to the shelter, he finds that he’s too late. The shelter has already been overfilled with poverty stricken families and other people from his halfway house. When night comes, he has no option but to go to sleep in a back alley. As it turns out, cold concrete isn’t too comfortable to sleep on. He ends up staying awake all night thinking about where he’s going to go tomorrow.
The next day, he’s walking down the street with a bag of tattered clothes that he got from The Salvation Army. He feels totally hopeless at this point. He has nowhere to go, his chances of getting a job have just gotten much slimmer and, since he’s homeless, his parole officer will probably deem it more appropriate that he goes back into the prison system for the remainder of his sentence. Just when he’s ready to stop walking and give up, a familiar car pulls up to the curb. It’s an old “friend” that he used to sell drugs with. The “friend” offers to give him a ride and, although he knows he shouldn’t get into the car, he just doesn’t see another option. He gets in and thanks the old partner in crime.
About 3 blocks down the street, the “friend” pulls a small bag of white powder out of the dashboard, takes a small pitch of it, and sniffs the powder up his nose. He offers some to his passenger. The parolee knows that he shouldn’t take it, but he doesn’t want to insult his only savior. Besides, it’s only one try for old times’ sake. It’ll be fun!
Within one week, this guy is selling drugs again. He couldn’t find a job, so he’s making money the only way he think he can. This guy could be on a corner just outside of your children’s school. He could be at the corner of your block. He could even be in the house next door. My ultimate point is that there are hundreds of thousands of people in America today who are committing crimes and damaging society in a way that could have been prevented if we were simply more responsible for our non-profits and charities.
The Angel Gift Network was created for this reason. We can enable you to donate to charities like the treatment funder, the homeless shelter, and thrift stores like The Salvation Army. Together we can make a difference for you, for your children, and for our nation as a whole. When you become an Angel in the Angel Gift Network, you are telling the world that you are willing to give to help the causes of the world in the most proactive way you possibly can. You will be creating funding sources for the most important part of our wonderful country… Charity.
Ask about the Angel Gift Network today to make a difference.
-D. Ramirez
Vice President, Public Relations
Angel Gift Network