My First Client - Part II

The first thing I did after I enrolled Antuan in the Passport to Success program was try to find him a different place to live. I pretty much did this on my own because the training from the agency was non-existent. It was more like, “Just keep your head above water. Don’t worry about the fact that the water is so vast and deep you can’t see land.” But I come from good Irish stock, which means I was resourceful.

I called county agencies, the housing authority, churches and even friends who had even a peripheral connection to supporting those living in poverty (all my clients, except for one, fit that bill). I compiled a file in Word, primitive but comprehensive, of places with available housing that would lease to those with “background.” Then I did the same thing with potential employers, although, to be fair, I did have an antiquated employer list the agency had provided, which at least gave me a starting point.

The program allocated $600 per client for the three months they could be in the program. After that, they were permitted follow-up appointments monthly for an additional six. Anyone familiar with the damage done from incarceration, not to mention the issues that caused imprisonment, knows this was nowhere near enough time for someone to make sustainable changes, but those were the rules.

I helped Antuan apply for food stamps and Medicaid (both of which should have been done at the prison before he was released) and found him a job at a fast-food place that hired people who’d served time. We also drove all over Tampa to look for housing, hoping to find a place that fit the budget of $150 month or less with little or no security deposit.

This is how I learned about the underground web of people renting beds to the poor, often in rundown buildings with plenty of insects and often little to no working indoor plumbing. Then there were the churches that offered literal cots in exchange for working around the grounds and swearing devotion to Jesus as their lord and savior, which included three nights of Bible study every week and a day-long commitment on Sunday.

Then I discovered the reality of getting around by bus, the great majority of clients didn’t have a car, in a city with one of the worst public transit systems in the country.

This added literal hours onto a commute and gave them almost no control over being late for work or probation appointments. I saw how exhausting it is to be poor and having a criminal record on top of that just added to the odds that a poor choice would be made in the heat of a moment that would send them back to prison.

The money we offered was insignificant in the scope of their needs and it didn’t take long for me to become convinced this was the intention. If clients stayed clean, those who designed the program could throw a parade to celebrate all their hard work. If clients got rearrested or sent back to prison, for any number of reasons, the sad cry would be, “We tried to help those people.” The only ones with the potential to “lose” were the clients.

I also figured out pretty quickly that our clients may have been diagnosed with serious mental health conditions, but the accuracy was questionable. I remember asking the program therapist after only a few months when the DSM (the Bible for diagnosing mental health conditions in the US) was going to come up with a diagnosis for pissed off.

What I saw and experienced in this job was not people who had schizophrenia (like Antuan was diagnosed with) or bi-polar or any of the other “illnesses.” What I saw was people who had been deeply traumatized and developed coping skills (drugs, alcohol, gambling, anger, etc.) that were not societally or legally acceptable. The medications they were prescribed tamped down the rage but did nothing to support sustainable change.

While it appeared on the surface that the program helped, it barely offered hope to men and women with severe PTSD from being in prison, not to mention whatever unresolved trauma they were dealing with before they were arrested. They were expected to find work immediately and keep it, stay clean, avoid the things that had been familiar prior to their arrests (people, places, and things), make probation or parole appointments on time and pay for them (very few people come out of prison completely free) and, of course, not get re-arrested.

I often joked that I couldn’t survive probation.

With Antuan especially, I felt an obsessive obligation to ensure he stayed out of prison. He reminded me of a Labrador puppy with giant brown eyes and a way of looking at me when he screwed up that made the mess less offensive.

In retrospect, I see the insanity of this. But in that moment, I was all in. I had zero education in social work or mental health and no training from my employer. The conditions and experiences I witnessed seemed so incredibly unjust and unfair and I wanted to believe I had the power to actually make a difference. 

So, I worked very hard, not just for Antuan, but for all the clients. I understand now some of them were probably playing me. But even today, I would rather err on the side of supporting someone rather than abandoning them – regardless of whether or not they were exaggerating their circumstances or even outright lying.

Their behavior doesn’t change the actions of the people who claimed they wanted to help when they were only in it for what they could get out of it. Like the Pastor at a church, whose support I sought for Antuan. I knew as a white woman there were limitations on my ability to relate to and reach him, so I was ecstatic when Pastor Andrews, a minister at one of the biggest black churches in town, agreed to mentor Antuan.

It took some convincing – Antuan was not religious – but I finally persuaded him to meet with the Pastor. The day of our appointment, we arrived a few minutes early, only to be told the Pastor Andrews was out and would not be back until tomorrow. I felt like a fool after having pumped up the opportunity to Antuan. I mumbled something lame, like he must have had an emergency, as we headed back to my car.

As I turned my Pathfinder around to get back to the street, who did I see through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the sanctuary, but the good Pastor, who it turns out, had intentionally ghosted us. I couldn’t figure out why until I recalled the conversation we’d had that morning.

When I called to confirm, he’d asked about remuneration, and I told him the program didn’t allow me to make a donation to his church. I also shared that with Antuan making minimum wage, covering rent, a cell phone bill, his probation fees, and the cost of a monthly drug test, that there was little left over for the church plate right now.

I encountered people like this regularly. They were all enthusiastic about helping their formerly incarcerated brothers and sisters, until the reality of actually doing the work of Jesus, without abundant compensation, hit them like a ton of bricks.

I think this is a big part of what made me so determined to be the one they could rely on. Because the people they were told they could depend on weren’t dependable.

Over the three months Antuan was an official client, he was rearrested a couple of times for failing his drug test. He loved his weed. He said it helped him stay calm without numbing him the way the medications prescribed for his schizophrenia did.

Twice I went to the Falkenberg Jail to see him. The program did not permit me to post bail, but I like to believe I provided some kind of comfort by visiting, talking to him, and assuring him I would help him find another job since a few weeks in jail meant he’d lost the one he had.

One of the biggest challenges he had was that he had no support. Other than me. And the program wasn’t designed to be a one-on-one mentorship. I had thirty other clients by this point. None of the friends he had prior to his arrest were around and knowing what I know now about neurodivergence, I believe Antuan had ADHD or some level of autism that made it challenging for him to be socially active without the use of marijuana to calm his nerves. This included interacting with people at work.

Each time he was arrested, he ended up in probation court, got his hands smacked and was released. Then I helped find him another job, which he managed to keep, until he failed another drug test. The irony that marijuana is now legal in Florida makes my head spin.

His use of the devil’s lettuce was the only reason he ever violated probation. He paid his fees on time. Never missed an appointment. And always kept his probation office up to date on address and employment changes.

It was only when he had to make a Sophie’s Choice about how to spend what money was left after his bills were paid – on weed or a product to disguise its presence in his urine – that he was busted. The marijuana was required to keep him functioning and he always chose it over a $20 tea that claimed to eliminate it from his body.

When he was arrested a third time for failing a drug test, I knew the likelihood of him going back to prison was high. Judge Daniel Perry was on the bench in the Violation of Probation Court, and he was known to be tough and not suffer fools. I was worried.

Stay tuned for Part III.

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