Q uestion of the Month

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WEB EXCLUSIVE: PERMANENT SUPPORTIVE HOUSING IN LAKE HIGHLANDS

Billy Middleton, 58, is dressed in a pressed green polo shirt, wearing a Bluetooth headset and sweeping the walkway in front of his onebedroom apartment. It’s not the spacious home he once shared with his wife, but it will do, considering the circumstances. Middleton served five years in prison on a drug-related offense. Upon his parole in 1994, he returned home and tried to get his life back together, but things didn’t go as planned. “My wife passed away, and I lost the house,” he says softly. Aging, with a criminal record and a disability ... he had trouble finding a job and ended up living on the street for more than a year Upon acceptance to Project Reconnect, he had to take life-skills classes and attend group meetings, he says. He’s required to pay rent (on a sliding scale) and stay out of trouble. Project Reconnect members have a double layer of supervision and support they have both parole officers and Project Reconnect caseworkers keeping an eye on them, paying visits to their home and randomly testing for drugs. “He’s always coming around checking on us,” Middleton says, nodding at Rod Caples, a caseworker who was planning to work with clients at Woodside Condominiums in Lake Highlands, before that project was canceled. Caples says permanent supportive housing works. Those who apply for this program generally are tired, older, and hoping to stay out of trouble, he says. “There is less than 10-percent recidivism with our program. It is not easy reentering society after spending 5, 10 or 15 years in prison. A lot of people have family or friends who are willing to help them out at first, but down the road it gets tough. We offer short- and longterm help with transportation, finding jobs, getting the tools they need to reunite with the community,” Caples says.

—excerpt from “project reconnect: kept out of Lake HigHLands, but stiLL reLevant”

by cHristina HugHes babb on

Re SP on SeS

It is not that the residents of Lake Highlands are unwilling to do their part in supporting those in need; it is that we feel other districts, who have few if any of the people in this category residing in their area, should also be doing their part.

gL ee Huebner

Thank you for this insightful piece that deals in facts rather than fears. As a resident of the Moss Farm subdivision, I welcome our neighborhood being part of such a positive solution to the problem of homelessness. I do hope our neighbors will pay close attention to these facts before disseminating more fear via petitions and rallies and yard signs.

—m ark WingfieLd

Why do you fail to mention that the reason DHA canceled the project at Woodside was, as stated by MaryAnn Russ, president of Dallas Housing Authority, that the crime stats on that property are “alarming” and that “it just doesn’t seem like a smart idea” to place people with a criminal past in such an environment.” That is a fact. And, here is another fact, one verified by Project Reconnect — as long as the crimes for which the participants were convicted were not “violent”, it does not matter how many times they have been in prison, or how many times they have previously been on parole.

—a nne mitc HeLL

to Read the whole thRead, Search: projectreconnect on

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