Chattanooga: Halfway home, but long road ahead

Sometimes, residents of the House of Refuge wake up dreading the day ahead of them.

It always starts the same: an alarm blaring at 5:30 a.m., getting them up in time to start cleaning duties at the Church of the First Born in St. Elmo about an hour later. By 8:30, they’ll be at Bible study, after which they either head to work or hit the job trail only to hear the word “no” again and again and again.

Almost every moment of their lives is regulated and supervised, except the few free hours they have in the afternoon before their house manager gets home from work. Then they’ll head off to anger management class or an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

“Some of the rules are really strict here,” lamented E.W. Keener, 48. “We’re grown men. Come on.”

But he said the structured environment is exactly what he needs to finally turn his life around.

Mr. Keener, one of eight men enrolled in the House of Refuge program, has had trouble governing his own life since he first began getting in trouble in 1979. He has been in and out of prison for years.

It will take Mr. Keener about five more months to complete the 12-month program, a faith-based initiative founded by Pastor Alfred Johnson of the Church of the First Born in St. Elmo in 1995.

“We just give them an opportunity to change their lives around,” Mr. Johnson said.

Former offenders need a social support network in order to make it, added program director Robert Thomas. House of Refuge aims to provide support and structure for those who don’t have a family on which to rely.

“A lot of these guys have burned bridges with their families,” Mr. Thomas said.

The program, which is followed up by three to five years of monitoring, was designed to change habits through strict regulations forbidding drug use, profanity, disobeying orders and sloppy home life. Participants have to either have steady employment or be actively looking for it.

But enrichment programming, which includes everything from Alcoholics Anonymous to parenting classes, is the key, he said.

“If we just give them a place to stay and get them a job, they’re not going to change, because they’ve still got the same mentality (they came in with),” Mr. Thomas explained.

House of Refuge charges each participant $80 per week for housing and program fees, another $35 for transportation if they don’t have bus passes and $5 per week to cover cleaning supplies. Those who don’t have jobs simply start a tab until they are able to put their paychecks toward the fees.

Though he’s been unemployed for months now, Mr. Keener has been able to rely on $172 in food stamps to buy groceries. He makes another $10 a week by feeding a friend’s dog, and that covers toiletries and other personal items.

Program managers estimate they’ve helped more than 100 men so far. Not every story will be a success story, said Kenneth Johnson, who as Alfred Johnson’s brother helps facilitate. Some walk out and quit, Mr. Johnson said, while others relapse several years after completing the program successfully.

Michael Lawrence, a 56-year-old Lookout Mountain, Tenn., native, graduated four years ago. But he returned voluntarily in several months after he realized that he still felt tempted to go back to a life of drugs and crime.

“The best thing for me is to stay around people who are like me,” he said.

Gale Reed, deputy district director at the Chattanooga Probation and Parole Office, praised the efforts of both House of Refuge’s participants and its founders.

State officials only certify certain facilities for parolees, Ms. Reed said, and the criteria are stringent. Even the House of Refuge had some administrative problems about a year ago and temporarily lost certification, she said.

She declined to specify what the problems were, as did Mr. Thomas, who said only that he was brought in to run the program after previous management was fired.

Ms. Reed said she wishes there were more programs like House of Refuge’s in the Chattanooga area — especially ones catering to women, as House of Refuge only accepts men.

“I don’t think we could ever have enough,” she said.

Mr. Keener would have to agree.

Compared to prison, he said, “Shoot. It’s heaven.”