Executive Director’s Report

By Brenda Snitzer

My first job out of college and graduate school was as an adult probation officer in Dallas. I had a master’s degree in counseling and wanted to help people.

People on my probation caseload had a felony. Rather than go to prison, they were sentenced to probation for a certain number of years. They had to see me monthly both in the office and at their home, pay a fee to the court, and abide by all the rules of their probation.

The communities I worked in were some of the poorest in Dallas. That was when I learned first-hand that people born into poverty have so many more challenges. The jobs in the neighborhoods where my clients lived didn’t pay a living wage. Making their probation fees was difficult, as was finding the means to support themselves. Many of them didn’t have the money for transportation to get to betterpaying jobs in other parts of the city or the education to increase their employability.

Even more difficult, not many emploers would give folks a chance because they had a felony conviction. Most of the people I worked with wanted to be selfsufficient and do better for themselves. But they lacked the resources to improve their circumstances. They got discouraged, and I got discouraged.

Most of the people I worked with [as an adult probation officer] wanted to be self-sufficient and do better for themselves. But they lacked the resources to improve their circumstances.

Those that wanted to avoid further criminal activity overcame their circumstances generally because the family or friends they lived with helped support them by reducing their expenses. Or they had an employer who took a chance on hiring them. Those that were able to obtain employment with a livable wage were the ones who made it. The ones that had many other challenges, such as a substance abuse addiction, might not make it. For others, they didn’t make it because of overwhelming financial burdens or lacking the skills to obtain a living-wage job.

The Stewpot is a first stop for many folks coming out of jail or prison because many don’t have the vital documents to obtain employment or housing. Our ID services help them greatly, along with the caring guidance of our caseworkers. Yet that is not the main role of our Stewpot home- less services’ caseworkers. Our homeless services program is mostly focused on assisting clients obtain their IDs. They must refer those coming out of jail or prison to other organizations for additional services.

The Stewpot is a first stop for many folks coming out of jail or prison because many don’t have the vital documents to obtain employment or housing.

Fortunately, numerous programs in Dallas now help people get back on their feet. Many of these programs are effective, such as Miles of Freedom, Dallas Leadership Foundation, Texas Offenders Reentry Initiative, Workforce Solutions (employment not just for formerly incarcerated), Volunteers of America, and Exodus Ministries.

As a probation officer in the 1980s and early 1990s, the job was more about enforcement of the rules. It was less about being able to help folks get back on their feet. That’s why I didn’t stay in that profession. Hopefully that has changed by now. People who have been involved in the criminal justice system and want help desperately need advocates and resources to live crime-free.

Brenda Snitzer is executive director of The Stewpot.

Facts to Know about Homelessness and Incarceration

“More than 12% of the American workforce has felony convictions and another 20% have misdemeanors.”

Source: Dallas Morning News, The Sentencing Project

“Approximately 70 million Americans have a criminal record.”

The Dallas Morning News, The Sentencing Project

“In Texas, more than 78,000 people are released each year from state and federal prisons.”

Source: The Dallas Morning News, The Prison Policy Initiative

“Barely more than half -- 55% -- of those previously incarcerated report earnings in the first year after their release.”

Source: The Dallas Morning News, The Brookings Institution

“More than 250 employment-based statutes and court rules restrict job seekers with a felony.”

Source: The Dallas Morning News

“People experiencing homelessness are 11 times more likely to face incarceration when compared to the general population.”

Source: Texas Center for Justice and Equity

“Formerly incarcerated individuals are almost 10 times more likely to be homeless than the general public.”

Source: Texas Center for Justice and Equity

“Adequate coverage for post-release programs is necessary to break the link between incarceration and homelessness.”

Source: Journal of Quantitative Criminology

Growing Up in Prison

By Poppy Sundeen

At 16, an age when most kids are engrossed in high school life, Michael Calhoun was starting a 30-year prison sentence. “They put me in with grown men even though I was a kid. Prison was prison then.”

“They put me in with grown men even though I was a kid. Prison was prison then.”

The prison in question was Preston E. Smith Penitentiary in West Texas, where he was on both the giving and receiving ends of violence. “I was a gangster when I got there from the streets, and I was a gangster in prison.”

Michael’s reputation as a fighter had preceded him. “Just so happened I was known when I got to prison.” He lived up to his notoriety, resulting in solitary confinement for long periods at a time. “I was in a cell by myself 23 hours a day. The other hour, they put handcuffs on me, put me in the day room, put me in the shower and then back in my cell.” That was his life from age 19 to age 27.

Three decades off the grid

Even when he wasn’t in solitary, Michael was removed from the rest of the world. “They took out the TV in 1996,” he says. “I didn’t watch TV again until 2020.”

He missed the rise of the internet and social media. He didn’t know how to use a cellphone. Today, three years since his release from prison, Michael’s still learning the ropes. “It’s like we’re in another country — if you’re going to survive, you’ve got to figure it out.”

Other, more personal changes took place during his confinement. His mother died in 2017, followed by his father in 2020, just two days before Michael came home to North Texas.

Rejoining the world

Luckily for Michael, he had remaining family waiting when he got out. His sister picked him up at the prison gate and drove him to his cousin’s Pleasant Grove apartment, where he’s lived since his release. They made the trip without stopping to eat. “I didn’t want restaurant food. I wanted my Aunt Nancy to cook for me.” She welcomed him back with her signature spaghetti.

“I didn’t leave my cousin’s apartment for two years,” he says. His isolation was due both to the Covid pandemic and to his 20 months of ankle-monitored parole.

Even now, Michael doesn’t venture out much. “I don’t know how to ride the bus,” he explains. “People have jobs. They don’t have time to teach me.” He gets rides from family and friends when he has someplace to go.

Seeking help from community resources and from above

One of the places Michael goes to is The Stewpot, where he meets with a caseworker who’s helping him get a toehold in the world outside the prison gates. “My mind is not equipped to deal with everything that’s going on. She helps me with things I don’t know how to do, like getting my ID and my own place to stay.”

Michael is still reluctant to spend time in public. “I go places, but I only go places where I’m comfortable.” That includes church. Michael, who “said other people’s prayers but didn’t pray,” became a believer in 2014. “It took me until then to step up in church and pray.” It’s been an important part of his life ever since.

His avoidance of public places is partly due to the violence he sees in today’s world. “The way our society is now, you can’t go to church, can’t go to school. I used to BE the one other people were afraid of,” he says, acknowledging the irony in his fear of being a victim.

A look back at the streets that shaped him

While he doesn’t make excuses for his past behavior, Michael does consider himself a product of his tough South Dallas neighborhood. Revisiting the streets where he grew up, he expresses concern for the people he left behind. Many of them are struggling. “They don’t have a home. They’re strung out on drugs. They’re living, but it ain’t life.”

“If I could prevent a child from going the route that I took, I’d gladly give word to it.”

He fears for the kids growing up there now. “They do what they do but they really don’t understand the consequences.” One of his dreams is to write children’s books. “If I could prevent a child from going the route that I took, I’d gladly give word to it.”

Lessons learned

Reflecting on the prison experience, Michael states, “You can either lose yourself or you can find yourself.” For him, it was the latter.

He became a proficient reader in prison. “When I got there, I could read three- or four-letter words.” His formal education had ended with eighth grade. In prison, Michael got a dictionary and started looking up words. “I’d break them down and highlight them in the book I was reading.”

He also learned to cut hair in prison and is thinking about pursuing a career as a barber. But the most profound lesson he learned in prison was to make the most of the life he was given. “I tell myself every day who I want to be.”

John 14:15–21

15 ”If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.

17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

18 ”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.

19 In a while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.

20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

21 They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

Continued from page 2 trend is not universal; churches in the Global South have been growing spectacularly at the same time churches in the West have been rapidly shrinking. The latter includes our denomination: the Presbyterian Church USA.

In response to the existential threat of extinction, churches have generally responded in one of three ways.

• Some are hunkering down to protect themselves from a culture that they interpret as hostile to their traditions.

• Other churches are branching out into politics, aligning themselves with the political party that’s most likely to defend their interpretation of scripture, especially on social issues.

• And still others have been seduced by the vapid, nebulous, mushy and false promise that death can be avoided with better marketing, more technology, conversational preaching, and increased diversity, all of which serves a well-intentioned attempt to remain relevant. Like the disciples to whom Jesus was speaking when he told them he was going to the Father, we are uncertain about who to trust, and what to do in the absence of Jesus.

• Things would be much easier if Jesus was just here, leading us away from the false gospels of Christian nationalism, and the false gospel of unity that doesn’t require repentance, and the false gospel that idolizes the marginalized and oppressed.

• Things would be much easier if we all went to one church, where Jesus himself was the preacher, instead of regular old humans that bring so much human baggage with them into the pulpit.

• Things would be much easier if he was around to curse the fig trees for us, and calm the storms for us, and feed the five thousand for us, and tell us who to vote for.

Maybe if he was around, the Shakahola Massacre wouldn’t have happened.

In southern Kenya last month, more bodies were pulled from shallow graves on the 800-acre property that Rev. Paul MacKenzie promoted as a safe haven from an apocalypse that only he could see coming. MacKenzie was a former taxi driver and a self-ordained Christian preacher. So far 179 bodies have been found and hundreds more of his disciples are missing.

What’s now being called the Shakahola massacre is a barbaric story we’ve heard before. A charismatic male — it’s always a man — claims to be the advocate that Jesus promised. People follow because we crave certainty in the midst of complexity. The fake advocate’s promise is always simple: eat this and you’ll be saved, drink this and you’ll be enlightened, follow me and I will be your advocate to God, mediating on your behalf, because you are too simple-minded to detect false gospels.

People follow because we crave certainty in the midst of complexity.

We have our own false prophets promising to be our advocate, our mediator to the gods, and our defenders of a certain kind of freedom that’s reserved for some of “we the people.”

We have our own false prophets promising to be our advocate, our mediator to the gods, and our defenders of a certain kind of freedom that’s reserved for some of “we the people.”

What Jesus instructs us is that before you ask someone what the truth is, before you turn to your favorite news channel or your favorite website, before you put your finger up to the wind to find out what conventional wisdom has to say, before you search for truth, keep Jesus’ commandments.

Love your neighbor as yourself. Otherwise, nobody will believe you.