Last year I wrote about how formerly-homeless residents of the Orange County Rescue Mission in California could progress through an 18-month program in four phases that give them the readiness to live on their own. I’m not aware of interaction between OCRM and the Forge Center in Joplin, Missouri (1,542 driving miles away), but through hard experience Forge has also come up with four phases, with completion possible in 16 months.
At Forge, most of the people I lived with are felons, so it makes sense that phase one lasts three months and emphasizes performing community service and developing relationships with staff members: Love your neighbors. The “Service Phase” also has rules concerning hygiene (take showers, wear deodorant, brush teeth) and dress (clean, no muscle shirts or jeans with holes). No beards below the jawline, no droopy mustaches. Beds need to be made daily.
Last month Michael Porter, whom I wrote about just before Easter, was in the Service Phase following his AWOL weeks last fall. No one in the Service Phase is to leave campus without permission. Everyone is subject to random urinalysis tests. No smoking, vaping, cellphones, unauthorized medications or electronic devices.
Do those used to a culture of crime and drugs need detoxing? Some say no. Forge says yes. After three Service months comes a three-month Education Phase, with lots of Bible study and classwork. Students receive Forge-provided cellphones and have the freedom — with prior approval and a classmate — to leave the property. Students finds mentors from church and meet with them weekly. Students begin part-time work.
One Forge resident I enjoyed meeting last fall, Robert French, was in that Education Phase when I checked last month. French, a Native American, told me he grew up with an alcoholic dad who put on birthday parties for him that were mostly keg celebrations. French became a Christian in 1999 and was a cabinetmaker with his own company, Righteous Custom Fit. But French’s wife died on July 18, 2021, the day before their 25th anniversary. He went to pieces: “Drinking killed my pain.” French got into fights. When one person came at him with a baseball bat he took out his knife and was arrested for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Now, he’s making progress.
So is Justin Swalley, also in the Education Phase. Swalley grew up in Oklahoma roping cows, riding horses, and going to a rural school with six other children. When he was in the fifth grade, he said, his cousins introduced him to meth. At age 20 he married and drove a forklift for a moving company, but was high much of the time — drinking, weed, meth — from age 11 to age 41. He said he’s been in prison five times (longest period was three years) and hasn’t seen his first daughter since she was two, 20 years ago.
Swalley talked with me about his Bible Belt upbringing in which he “never attended church, [but] I believe in God because I’m from Oklahoma. If I was from Budapest I’d probably believe in Buddha.” Swalley was shot when he was nine, later survived a car wreck and a horse falling on his hip, and concluded that “it took me thirty years to figure things out, but I want a new start.”
That’s the attitude Forge residents need. Those who are six months into the program and making progress enter the Work Phase, typically four months. They work at a full-time job and move from group living downstairs to small rooms upstairs. Church attendance and mentor meetings continue to be required. They have access to $75 of their weekly earnings for food and incidentals. They pay $150 for utilities and have the remainder directly deposited into savings accounts. They remain subject to random urinalysis.
Kris Wilson is a welder in the Work Phase. Like Austin Bond whom I wrote about on March 15, Wilson is trying to put together the pieces of his life. His parents divorced when he was one or two. He said his mom, who was stable, wanted custody of their children, but “dad had the money and a judge kept throwing us back and forth.” Wilson said his dad was “the biggest dope cook in the county,” staying out of jail for the most part because he gave drugs to officials who would otherwise jail him. But now Wilson is learning what thousands of homeless individuals and many other need to learn: Do not be dragged down by the way you were raised.