At least 95 percent of state prisoners will be released back to their communities at some point.
Our first referral came from a friend I’d made in my local AA meeting, Stan Dowells. Stan worked for a social service agency then called the Homeless Outreach Program, HOP for short, which had been founded by a homeless Vietnam War veteran who was living out of a cardboard box in Skid Row.
Stan was, himself, formerly homeless. A black man from Chicago, he’d been arrested for a murder he didn’t commit and was imprisoned for two years before being proven not guilty at trial and, at last, released. But in the years he’d been locked up, he lost everything—work, his home, his family. He left Chicago and wandered west, hoping for a new start. In Los Angeles, he found good jobs, in aerospace manufacturing and for the Sanitation Department, but drugs and alcohol had followed him west too. “I kept on picking up,” he said. “One morning, I just stopped going to work.” Eventually, Stan wound up homeless in Skid Row. One day, he was sitting on a box outside a rundown hotel on 5th and Main, when a baby fell from an upper-story window.
“I saw that poor baby and thought, why did it have to live down like this?” Stan said. “And then I looked at my own self, how hopeless I felt. I thought, you don’t have to live down like this. I started to cry. And that’s when I surrendered. I didn’t quite know at the time I was running up the white flag, but that’s what I did.” He hobbled to the nearby Weingart detox center where, he said, “They saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself.” A few days later, he picked up a newspaper and read that the baby had lived. “It shot a spark through me,” he described. “I wanted to live. God works through people—God saved the baby, and that baby saved me. And that started me on this journey.” Stan went on to earn a degree in drug and alcohol counseling. When I met him, he’d just been named director of HOP’s Community Resource Center.
Stan’s referral was a fifty-five-year-old woman named June. The only thing, he said, was that she needed transportation. I didn’t realize most recovery homes wouldn’t do pick-ups, and Stan seemed relieved when I said, “No problem.” Though June had never been incarcerated, she had mental health issues and a history with drugs and alcohol. She also had a daughter who’d pay $500 a month for room and board. Quiet and sweet, June enjoyed doing art projects, and her daughter’s reliable monthly payment helped bridge the gap while I worked on filling the rest of our beds.
Our second resident came by happenstance. Linda Washington hadn’t been to prison either, but addiction was getting the best of her. She’d lost her apartment, knew her job as a nurse’s assistant would be next, and even felt her own life was on the line if she didn’t get help. A bed was supposed to be opening up at CLARE, but when Linda showed up, the space wasn’t yet available. Told to come back in an hour, Linda went for a walk along the beach. When she returned, I happened to be in the lobby, dropping off a flyer for A New Way of Life. I overheard the conversation with Linda—the person who was supposed to leave still hadn’t, and no other beds were available.
I handed Linda a flyer and said, “I have a bed.”
At first she looked perplexed, then a smile spread across her face. “I’ll never forget looking over and seeing you,” Linda later told me. “You didn’t know me from diddly-squat. But your hand was extended to me.”
One day, when I returned home from running errands, Mitzi popped her head out from the kitchen and said, “The court called you.”
The court? I didn’t have a clue what the court would be calling about. But I knew from personal experience that a call from the court was never good. I ignored it, knowing if they wanted me bad enough I’d be hearing from them again. Five days later a woman named Wanda called. “When are you coming to get me?” she said.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“In county jail. The court released me to you. They tried calling you.”
I couldn’t believe it. The court was releasing someone to the care of A New Way of Life? All those times I went before the court, and now I was a person the court was relying on? Never before had I driven to the county jail with a smile. I had no idea how the court had learned about A New Way of Life, and I never questioned it. I chalked it up to a “God-shot”—what would be the first of many.
Wanda wasn’t able to pay our suggested $500 a month toward rent and expenses. But I wasn’t about to turn anyone away. Eventually, the county granted Wanda General Relief of $200 a month, which helped, but we still had half a dozen empty beds, and it was becoming clear that covering the mortgage and expenses was going to be much more challenging than we’d thought.
I went to the bus station around the corner from Skid Row. I didn’t know who’d be getting off the bus, but I knew that, every day, women released from prison were on it. I showed up there because I wished someone had been there for me. Sometimes I saw a familiar face get off the bus, someone I’d served time with. “I have a house in South L.A.,” I offered. “There’s a bed if you’d like it. It’s drug and alcohol free. You don’t have to go back to the streets if you don’t want to.”
Some women looked wary and said no. But some said yes.
Still, we had empty beds, and bills to pay.
There was talk in the community that a social services agency called Walden House was looking to contract with local organizations. I knew about Walden House because, when I was in prison at California Rehabilitation Center, they were creating a comprehensive drug rehabilitation program for inmates—I’d tried to get in, but only a handful of slots existed, and I was shut out. Now, Walden House was looking to continue services for people after release from prison.
On a whim, Beverly and I flew to the Walden House headquarters in San Francisco. We didn’t know where to go or who to talk with, so I stopped someone in the hall to ask who was in charge of contracting with community organizations. As I explained about A New Way of Life, a man stepped out of a nearby office. Little did I realize, I’d stopped to have this conversation in front of the door of the executive director, Demetrius Andreas. Having overheard everything, he said, on the spot, that he would authorize Walden House to issue A New Way of Life a contract for housing. Another God-shot.
Walden House funded $35 per woman per day, to be used for shelter, transportation, and meals. Also, through Walden House, I was granted special clearance to go into the prison system to give presentations about A New Way of Life and recruit future clients.
Prison was the last place I ever wanted to return to. But there I was, in street clothes, walking into the California Institution for Women, knowing I’d be able to walk out. As I passed through the doors into the yard, I felt a rush of emotion. I was here with purpose, in possession of my dignity, my individuality, my own power—all the things that had been stripped from me the last time I stood in this yard. Thoughts of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth filled my head. In some small way, I hoped my presence and my voice could offer women a way out of the cycle, could help them find their own lasting freedom.
The first woman I saw—she was tough to miss—was Cherelle, nicknamed Six-Two, for her height. We’d known each other from the neighborhood, long before prison. “Girl, I got a house now,” I called to her. “And I’ll have a bed for you when you get out.”
Her face turned sad. “I’m a lifer,” she said. She’d been involved in a drug transaction that went very bad, and someone was killed. I knew how easily that could have been me. How easily I could’ve ended up just like Six-Two. Or wound up dead. I thought of my Living Amends and made a commitment to myself to keep coming back here to provide what support I could to these women.
One of the guards came up to me. “I remember you,” he said.
“I remember you, too,” I said. No longer having to keep my head down or my mouth shut, I continued, “I remember how you tore up my locker. For no reason.”
His eyes narrowed. “It must have been good for you,” he replied. “Because you didn’t come back.”
I wanted to get into it, to talk about the abuse of power, but I was here for a different reason. I gave him a look that said, You still don’t get it, and walked on.
Walden House’s drug rehabilitation program, called Forever Free, was held in a trailer. I spoke to the class about my journey and about A New Way of Life, and then asked each person what she wanted to do with her life. I could see the pain all over the women’s faces and the fear in their eyes. I could hear their bewilderment about what might be in store for them on the outside. Many said they could only dream of walking back in here to help as I was.
I’d served time with one woman there, Mary. She had the voice of an angel and I got chills just remembering how I’d lie in my bunk at night listening to her sing “Amazing Grace.” I asked when she was getting out.
“I got caught stealing two sweatsuits, and struck out,” she said, referring to the Three Strikes sentencing law. “I’m a lifer now. I’m not coming home.” Nearly half the states in the nation had some type of three-strikes law, though, in California, the name was a misnomer because it also hit “two-strikers,” automatically doubling the sentence on a second offense, regardless of the crime. While curbing repeat offenders had been the goal, the result was that prisons were filled with people serving inordinate sentences for low-level offenses. Mary was doing twenty years to life for petty theft. Rather than striking out, I had lucked out because the law wasn’t enacted in California until 1994. It was only timing—not lack of offenses—that had me on this side.
At the end of the day, leaving the prison grounds, getting in my car, and heading home felt surreal. The full circle of my life was drawn so completely it hardly seemed possible.
Over the following weeks and months, when many of the women I’d spoken with were released, they called me. I’d drive up to the prison gates and holler to the gun tower the name and number of the person I was picking up. “She’ll be right out,” they shouted back, which meant I’d be waiting at least an hour.
First thing, when a woman got in my car, I asked if she was hungry. We often stopped at McDonald’s on the drive to A New Way of Life. I listened if she wanted to talk, but I never asked what she’d done. She had paid her debt; I was only interested in what she wanted to do from here out.
After several months, all ten beds in the house were at last filled. I slept on a cot in the dining room, next to the fax machine. Within the walls of A New of Life, a beautiful community of women helping and supporting each other was blossoming. Together, we were healing. Never again would I feel like it was just me; it was us. I watched bonds form, like a family; not without ups and downs, but with support you could count on in a way you couldn’t with most people.
I’d spent much of my life so caught up in my own head I wasn’t able to care about anyone else. But I remember the moment that began to change: it happened at CLARE, while I listened to a man sharing his story, and all his feelings jumped out at me. Concerned, I found Jan, a counselor, and told her, “I’m feeling so deeply what this man is talking about. I’m feeling his pain, and feeling his joy.” Jan looked at me knowingly. “Susan, that’s what connecting with your feelings is about.” This was the first time I really understood empathy.
Now, it was my goal to live with unwavering empathy for the women at A New Way of Life. I began to view this as my talent: I could connect with people and feel something. I could see the hope and possibilities in everyone. My job now was to value each and every woman, to cast aside my doubt and to believe in them—and to teach them to cast aside their own doubt and to hold themselves and others to a standard of accountability, integrity, and respect.
Toni and Ellesse came by the house, and, at the end of their visit, Ellesse looked at me and I could see the pride in her eyes. I picked up Mama and brought her to visit the house. She took a good look around. “I like these women,” she said. “They’re liberated.”
I set a schedule for A New Way of Life: 8 a.m., we did a morning meditation together to start each day with positivity and reflection, and to set a personal goal. Then, the women made their own breakfast and completed their assigned household chores. After that, we went our separate ways for the day. I chauffeured women to jobs or to look for a job, to mandated parenting classes, to report to their parole officer, to twelve-step meetings, to social worker appointments, and to courtrooms as they tried to regain custody of their children.
In the evening, Mitzi cooked dinner, and we all ate together, going around the table to hear about each other’s day. Maybe, to some, having a cook seemed excessive. But I believed coming home to a meal set a warm foundation for the household and eliminated a worry many of us knew all too well: that we might go to bed hungry.
On weekends we did errands together, like grocery shopping. Some women were eligible for food stamps, though it didn’t matter who was or wasn’t—everyone contributed what she could. Somehow, we always managed to cobble together enough to cover our bills. We were just getting by, but I wasn’t looking for anything beyond getting by.
As the months passed, I watched with pride as women made enough strides to begin to transition out of the house. Seeing them go on their own, into their own apartments, some reunited with their children, was victorious. Often they were scared, crying as we hugged goodbye. “Just because you’re leaving,” I said, “doesn’t mean we aren’t still here for you.” But I knew their fear—in the house there was a cushion of stability, the lights would be on, food would be there. Leaving meant the responsibility was now all on them.
To continue filling the beds as they became available, the women and I wrote to imprisoned women we knew who were approaching the end of their sentences. Our letters said: If you need a safe, sober, women-only environment, call A New Way of Life.
The phone rang. “I got your letter. You said to call.”
“Where are you?”
Their voices trembled. “I just got off the bus.”
I’d say, “I’ll be right there.”
As word about A New Way of Life spread, prisoners began writing us. When I was behind bars, I’d written letters to treatment programs asking for help, but I never got any response. Which is why I personally answered every letter we received, even when letters began arriving daily.
“Dear Ms. Burton,” they’d write. Ms. Burton. It was a title that conveyed a level of respect. It was also, to me, my mother. But here I was, becoming a kind of surrogate mother to others in need—and, in a way, making amends for those years I wasn’t the kind of mother my own children deserved.
“I kept on, kept on, kept on,” Dana said when she phoned A New Way of Life from the street. “I’m tired, and I don’t want to wind up back in jail. I need a place to go, but I don’t have any money.”
I told her to come over.
“Thank you, Jesus,” she exhaled.
Dana thrived at the house. She was able to reunite with her children and received permission to spend weekends together at A New Way of Life. I took Dana with me to the Cocaine Anonymous Convention in Palm Springs. “I’ve never been anywhere,” Dana said when we arrived at the hotel. She even mustered the courage to stand before a large group and speak about her experiences. Because of Dana, I started taking all the women to the annual Cocaine Anonymous Convention to meet people and see a world of recovery. Often, this was the first time the women had gone on a trip, and I instructed them to pack for a formal dinner, a swimming pool, and a nice hotel—though they kept calling it a motel.
When Dana began experiencing health symptoms, her skin itched horribly and she always felt like she needed to use the bathroom, I pestered her. “You going to get to the doctor?” For weeks I bothered her. “You going to get out of here tomorrow and go to the doctor? You going to get up in the morning and make an appointment with the doctor?” Finally, she went and was diagnosed as severely diabetic. “I don’t want to think, Ms. Burton, if you hadn’t seen me out there to the doctor,” Dana said, her head shaking with gratitude.
By the time Dana had been in the house for six months, her health had improved and she was in the process of gaining full custody of her children. But her subsidized housing—which was so difficult to get when you had a criminal record—hadn’t yet come through. She came to me, asking if she could stay longer.
Initially, Beverly, Mitzi, and I had intended A New Way of Life to be active, with each woman staying up to six months, at which point she’d ideally have enough elements in place to transition out on her own. But Dana risked losing her children if she didn’t have a permanent address, and she’d worked too hard to have everything jeopardized, so, of course, I told her she could stay.
Beverly saw things differently. She insisted that Dana leave, that a maximum of six months was what we’d decided at the beginning. But, in the beginning, we didn’t know what we were doing, and we thought we needed to impose some type of structure. Now, things were real. These were real people, real lives. Enforcing arbitrary rules that disregarded an individual’s needs would make us no better than the senseless system we’d all been trapped in and were still trying to escape. But Beverly held firm against me.
Though she tried to hide it, I knew Beverly had become addicted to Vicodin. I was deeply sad and concerned about her. I was also disappointed. We’d been in this together, and I felt hurt and let down. It was clear Beverly wasn’t ready to confront things, and I knew, from being on the other side, how quickly entangled and dangerous interfering could become. My only choice was to distance myself. Though my pulling away also succeeded in angering her.
The local news was on TV one day when a picture of Beverly appeared on the screen. She was on the run after having robbed a jewelry store in Redondo Beach. Horrified, I raced through the house cutting off the TVs, hoping none of the women had been watching.
Not long after, Beverly showed up to the house, demanding that Dana had to be out.
“If you want to get a place and put people out, go get a place,” I said. “But I’m here to help people.”
At that, Beverly pushed me. I was holding a mug of coffee, and it spilled everywhere. There’s a line in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous that came to me, “Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point.” Beverly was family, but Dana was a woman who needed help. I saw Dana, cowering in the corner, feeling awful that she was the cause of such friction. But the decision to let Dana stay or not was the difference between Dana’s life falling apart or coming together. This was a turning point. I took the turn. I pushed Beverly back.
She punched. I punched back. One of the women called the police. With the threat of the cops arriving, Beverly ran.
I was shaken, but relieved. I didn’t see or talk to Beverly until eight months later, when she sent a message asking me to appear in court on her behalf. She was being prosecuted for grand theft. I showed up to her trial, and I made a statement to the judge about how difficult life experiences can be and about the opportunity to give someone a chance to recover. But, hooked on Vicodin, Beverly had committed a string of thefts. The judge commented that she’d been apprehended at the high-end store Barney’s. “I can’t afford to shop there,” he said. Beverly was sentenced to eight years.
Dana stayed on at A New Way of Life; when she left she had her housing and full custody of her kids. She started her own cleaning service, and remained sober, productive, and happy.