Voice in the Wilderness

When the Sky is Cryin', Walnut Creek Homeowners get in a Rude Mood;
Travis Commissioners Avoid a Cold Shot at the Ballot Box

In the song "Texas Flood", the late, great Stevie Ray Vaughn lamented his baby's choice of residence and declared "I'm goin' back home to stay/Well back home are no floods or tornados/
Baby and the sun shines every day". Unfortunately, it will be a little harder for certain Travis county homeowners to separate from the consequences of Texas' tempestuous climatic travails.

For example, VitW reader, Jan Brauner, surfaced this story in the Statesman this week and sent me a note chronicling her water logged tale of woe.

"Two days ago, I read in the Austin American Statesman, an article concerning a Travis County Commissioner Court consideration to reimburse homeowners on Walnut Creek, whose homes are threatened by erosion. The deal seemed beneficent, as it included full market price for the homes, $22,500, moving expenses, and new utility hook-ups. As it happens, my home, just off of Lamar and Rundberg, suffered massive foundation cracking, due to sub-strata erosion, if you will. The house has been undergoing reconstruction to make it livable again, and the amount of damage was close to one hundred thousand dollars (approximately what we paid for it), as the floors buckled, walls cracked, the roof cracked, etc., etc."

Thus, it sounds like Jan's house would be eligible for some type of reimbursement from the county government. Naturally, Jan followed up with the county mandarins to see how she could be part of the program.

"I contacted the Commissioner's Court, and said that my home had been destroyed by erosion, and that I, too, would appreciate being a part of a taxpayer funded reimbursement program. The commissioner I spoke to seemed quite non-plussed by my call, and curtly said that she could provide no logical explanation for why my horrible misfortune was less deserving of consideration than someone else's misfortune. And, she further could not explain the criteria parameters used to determine how they would establish equity among those who have experienced catastrophic, non-insurable disasters on their homes, in such a program. Further, she could not explain (by now she was very annoyed with the call), why a homeowner saddled with a destroyed home, should have to help reimburse others for the potential destruction of their homes. Lastly, she indicated a lack of familiarity with the 'slippery slope' concept. "

I suspect the Commissioners got caught in the crossfire about this program since the story broke, which would account for the commissioner's surly attitude. But what is really disturbing about the testimony above is the unclear and subjective criteria helping one homeowner but not another.

"Interestingly, I spoke with the author of the article, who quite understood the precarious nature of 'selecting' only some homes for disaster relief. Which, given the nature of the Austin American Statesman, it was surprising to find a writer who wasn't uncritically supporting 'being compassionate' with the hard earned money of others. We actually had a rather fascinating conversation, as we delved into Toby Futrell, Midtown Live, and some other issues. I told him not to be overly worried about the quality of the Austin American Statesman, as I surely didn't consider it to be any worse than Al Jazeera........"

(Al Jazeera?!? Yeouch!)

As Jan astutely observes, this program seems to discriminate between different types of homeowners. If you make too much money or live in the wrong part of town, you're sorta' hung out to dry by the County Commissioners Court. Furthermore, it is not entirely clear what culpability the county government has in any case of flood erosion threatening homes and property. The Statesman story reports that flooding and erosion is sometimes exacerbated by upstream development, about which, I suppose, city or county officials should know and plan. But to what degree should local tax-payers be responsible for damages? Shouldn't upstream developers and the homeowner's insurance bear part of the cost as well?

Subjective and unequal treatment of citizens.....
Uncertain and possibly unnecessary expenditure of local tax dollars....

No wonder the Travis County Commissioners Court decided to form a committee, draft a proposal, and punt the decision to the voters in November.

Texas Reach Out Ministries provides more compassionate model for ex-prisoners

The Texas Public Policy Foundation is hosting a confab this Tuesday, April 12, titled “Looking Beyond Prison Walls”. The purpose is to “discuss the landmark shift in the state's criminal justice policy as lawmakers have begun rejecting the construction of costly new prisons in favor of greater reliance on other strategies.” For this discussion, I respectfully submit the compelling story and renewal ministry of Texas Reach Out Ministries.

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Visage of the Dark Forerunner

“The Lord turned my life right side up”, said David Pena, an ordained minister and steward of Texas Reach Out Ministries.

In the mid 1980’s, Pena was in prison and becoming ensnared in the prison culture of drug use, violent turf fighting, and self-reliant bravado. Having discovered an ability to distill booze for the jailhouse economy, Pena was eventually confronted by rival inmates trying to horn in on his black market niche. Words were exchanged, threats issued, boasts made. Faced with the potential loss of respect and power, Pena planned revenge by murder.

Three days before settling the score, Pena met an unexpected messenger.

Waiting in the infirmary, he saw 6 prison guards carrying in sick, elderly inmate from solitary confinement. In since 1964, this man was Hispanic (like Pena), covered in tattoos (Pena already had one or two), was in solitary confinement for committing murder while in prison (which Pena was laying plans to do), and parroting the profane, prideful smack talk common in the machismo prison culture (Pena was getting good at it himself). The man was a living phantom foretelling the consequences of dissolute living, a perverse ghost of prison life yet to come

The effect was immediate.

“In that man,” recalls Pena, “I saw myself talking back to me. The devil robbed that man of his life.”

Returning to his cell, Pena fell to his knees. While not particularly religious before, Pena pleaded with God…..if You are for real, change me and I will follow where you lead!

Getting out in 1987, Pena has been clean and sober for 18 years. Following God’s lead, he’s earned degrees at Austin Community College and Texas State and became a Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor. In 2000, he first got his vision for Texas Reach Out Ministries.

The Wheatfield Vision

In 2000, Pena was working for the Austin Recovery Center, first as a counselor, then director. One day while driving around town, Pena reports seeing a vision of wheat fields, a biblical image signifying a spiritual harvest, and a mental slideshow showing small groups of ex-offenders living in 18 home-based recovery communities.

From this image and many divine appointments, Texas Reach Out Ministries was born.

The ministry consists of:

• Incoming screening: Texas Reach Out Ministries uses a standard form to capture each potential resident’s demographic information, history, habits, and spiritual state. Reach Out Ministries serves only those men and women who have made a serious commitment to change their life course and a conscious decision for Christ.
• Housing: Pena engages community churches to get involved working along side with the residents renovating the homes Texas Reach Out Ministries buys. Each home houses up to 7 residents.
• An atmosphere for spiritual growth
• Integration into local church for accountability: All residents are required to attend a church of their choice weekly.
• Duration: residents may participate in the ministry program up-to-two years, depending on their needs and goals
  
• Employment assistance: Texas Reach Out Ministries actively seek employers to hire residents, giving them the means for a future of self-sufficiency.
• Contribution: Upon finding a job, residents are expected to pay $75/week for rent and $25/week for food.

“We are creating a new model that is on the cutting edge of transitional care,” Pena said. Whereas other transitional care models offer mainly just housing, Texas Reach Out Ministries also addresses the whole person to replace the attitudes and behaviors learned in prison, a mindset with which Mr. Pena is very familiar. The objective is to create an environment for spiritual renewal, new ways of thinking, and new behaviors.

“We teach them to walk by the Holy Spirit, not prison guards,” Pena said.

On March 31, 2005 Texas Reach Out Ministries closed on its 6^th house.

Of Church and State

Recidivism in Texas is measured over a three-year timeframe from release. Pena reports that a team from Texas State University is developing a study to identify an apples-to-apples recidivism comparison with Texas Reach Out Ministries. However, Pena also said that they have done some preliminary tracking of former residents to test the re-integration success rate 6 months after leaving, with “success” being defined as

• Moving into a stable housing situation
• Have full time work
• Not using drugs or abusing alcohol
• No re-offenses

By these parameters, Texas Reach Out Ministries is 70-75% successful.

While it is still early in the game, wouldn’t the government be interested in somehow replicating this model? For that matter, wouldn’t Texas Reach Out Ministries be interested in getting government funding to extend their reach?

“We don’t want to get in bed with the government,” said Pena, or else it might water down the power of the Gospel, the story of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the key point of any faith-based, ex-offender ministry. The government’s temptation with programs of this type will be to engage them to get the results but lay restrictions on them because they might be – gasp! – religious. Upon hearing this word, the bureaucratic apparatus is pre-programmed to robotically repeat the phrase “separation of church and state” and use all sorts of sly machinations to remove any true spiritual activity behind the religious words, leaving an institutionalized form of godliness but denying its power.

Yet, this humanist tendency will kill the goose that lays the golden egg. The spiritual renewal of the individual is the whole life and structure of Texas Reach Out Ministries and other programs of its type. Mentoring, accountability, scriptural instruction, job placement training, all bound together in the spiritual relationship to God through Jesus Christ, have in them a recuperative power that reforms the person from within. This renewal, though, requires spiritual discipleship. Thus, the state simply cannot minister to the whole person in the same way.

Moving Forward

The state can, and should, punish. But it cannot restore, because it is unable. That is the bailiwick of the community and church (“church” here meaning the body of believers, not a particular denomination).

Therefore, here are some principles I propose should be included in the corrections reform discussion:

• Promote: Elected officials and other thought leaders should be a cheerleaders for these programs
• Consider tax incentives for employers who participate in job placement for these types of ministries
• Avoid directly subsidizing these ministries (see the part about killing the goose that lays the golden egg above)
• Pursue true ministry to the whole person
• Do not be afraid. Critics may weep and wail over disingenuous “separation of church and state” concerns. They operate from an obsolete and discredited worldview that sees the government as the means to godliness. They are of the past and miss the compassion of the spiritual restoration approach.

(Author’s postscript: I am aware that there are other, home-based aftercare programs similar to Texas Reach Out ministries that have no or different spiritual content. While I do not specifically address them here, I hold that they should be included in any discussion about corrections reform in Texas as they help prove the home-based, mentorship/accountability/job training model.)