Felons wanting to start over struggle with Boulder County housing, employment obstacles

April 08--On paper, Glenn Allan Tefft was sure he qualified for an open position at a Longmont printing plant even with his criminal background. But his spirits were low after he believed he was judged on his appearance during what he thought was a suspiciously brief interview Wednesday.

"People won't even look at you," he said a week before the opportunity arose. "You can tell I'm homeless."

Almost 39, a three-time felon who's been to jail but not prison, Tefft is struggling to defy the odds also faced by 95 percent of the prison population that the Congressional Research Service expects will reintegrate back into the greater community at some point.

The roof under which he rests his head at night -- that is, when he feels comfortable enough to drift to sleep -- is the concrete of a Longmont underpass.

"I don't see how you can get from nothing to something," said Tefft, an on-and-off drug user and father of two young daughters. "You'd have to work nonstop for three months and not spend any of that money just to have a deposit. And I don't see how it's possible without help."

With stanch policies limiting employers from hiring felons and property managers from renting to them -- two of the most competitive markets in Boulder County -- those with criminal backgrounds wrestle with putting their darker pasts behind them and starting anew.

The result is often homelessness, recidivism and the continuation of toxic behaviors, which catapults them back into a cycle of failed attempts at sleeping somewhere stable, landing well-paying jobs and seeing themselves as worthy members of society upon reentry.

Studies in recent years by the Bureau of Justice Statistics have found that out of 404,638 prisoners released across 30 states in 2005, about two-thirds, or 67.8 percent, were rearrested within three years of release. More than half were rearrested by the end of the first year.

Pressure to change falls upon the offender to be proactive, but the leaders of reentry programs in Boulder County say immediate support from friends, family and the community is also critical.

"We always say the first 72 hours are really important because if they can't get some type of stable housing situation, food, clothing, they're going to resort to what they know best and that's most likely either drugs and alcohol or back to some sort of crime," said Courtney Gomez, executive director of Focus Reentry.

"A lot of times we see people purposely getting themselves arrested so they have a place to stay."

Several countrywide initiatives -- such as the "Ban the Box" movement to remove the criminal background question from job applications as well as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's new direction to landlords to not flat-out refuse ex-offenders -- are acknowledging the struggle.

But backing up the criminalized population more directly in Boulder County are the local programs, such as Focus Reentry, in its 12th year, and others that bridge that vulnerable gap by pairing inmates up with mentors.

They act as liaisons between food banks, probation and health appointments, job training, bus and clothing vouchers and other basic services.

"It's really overwhelming for those first few days to be back into the real world and so much responsibility and so much freedom just all at once given to you," Gomez said. "So our mentors are there to just be a presence and reduce as much anxiety as possible for the mentees."

Struggling for shelter

Coming from a wealthy and college-educated background, Lisa Lacey said for the first time she had to fight for life's essentials upon her release from prison in 2013 and then from the Longmont Community Treatment Center in 2014.

"It was scary because everybody wants to do a background check, a credit check," she said. "Me being a felon, you don't want that embarrassment. It was embarrassing to me to have to say, 'Yes, I've been to prison. Yes, I'm a felon.'"

In 2009, Lacey was sentenced to the Denver Women's Correctional Facility after being convicted of embezzling $35,000 from her employer, a Colorado Springs medical practice. At the time, she said, she was wrapped up in cocaine addiction and unhealthy relationships.

While incarcerated for four years, she said she took advantage of every program offered, from culinary arts to transformational ministries -- the latter of which was led by a woman named Kristi Hornick -- until she was released six years earlier than her initial sentence.

"I was that determined that I wanted to be OK when I got out and I wanted to make something of myself," she said.

Lacey said she mustered the inner strength to lock down a job as a waitress -- she was fired from Walgreens when they discovered she was a felon -- and find stable housing. She said she found a studio apartment on Craigslist from a landlord who didn't prod about her criminal background. A year later, she moved into a cottage he owned before returning to her family in Colorado Springs in 2016.

"He told me, 'You have been one of my most amazing, best tenants I have ever had,'" she said. "Those are good things to hear when you've come from where I've come from."

But not everyone catches a break.

Lacey is a success story that Hornick sees as a model for others. Hornick is now serving primarily female felons in Longmont with Deborah Simmons through The Reentry Initiative, which they formally launched in October 2016 out of Longmont's OUR Center.

"For me, they're our neighbors," Hornick said. "I don't care what they've been charged with. I care about, how do you peel away the layers and say, how did you get to this?"

They're scouting properties to open a women's-only transitional housing unit, which would be the only one in the county directly accepting women from statewide prison facilities.

She said they expect clients -- they've helped 16 so far -- to solidify housing and employment within the first three weeks of release so they can have a place to rest and address underlying issues, such as mental health and substance abuse.

"If you can set them up with that housing-first model, it seems the rest falls into place," Hornick said.

However, affordable, sober and felon-friendly housing is scarce in Boulder County, said Greg Brown, the 20th Judicial District's chief probation officer.

The average rent in Boulder is $1,721 a month, $1,295 a month in Longmont and $1,532 a month in the rest of the county, according to January reports.

Longmont Housing Authority denies anyone with a felony and Boulder Housing Partners excludes anyone who's been arrested or convicted of a crime, according to posted eligibility requirements.

And across Longmont, anti-crime programs such as the police's Crime Free Multi-Housing immediately disqualify people with felony convictions from participating complexes and the recent recruitment of individual landlords.

Brown said he views the exclusive strategy as harmful, separating "us" from "them."

"It's trying to create some artificial barrier between us and them when everybody is in the community anyway," he said. "Most people who get into trouble are not a threat to their next-door neighbor."

Through the 20th Judicial District, some felons on probation are housed in halfway houses, such as the Longmont Community Treatment Center and the Boulder Community Treatment Center.

Tefft said he has lived in both following his most recent felony convictions for menacing and a misdemeanor conviction for violating a restraining order. In 2014, he was evicted from a property of Boulder County Housing & Human Services' self-sufficiency program for drug activity, according to previous reports.

A limited number of high-risk felons rent for up to six months at Briarwood Apartments, 1227 Kimbark St. in Longmont, which is a converted motel with five male rooms and five female rooms leased to the 20th Judicial District from the Longmont Housing Authority. They reported a 60 percent success rate of 72 participants last year, meaning the successful ones left with their own long-term, sober housing lined up.

There's also Transitional Residential Treatment at the Addiction Recovery Center, where people can stay up to 90 days. But Brown said they send offenders to Larimer or Adams counties for long-term residential care.

"If you don't have housing or something to do for 30 or 40 hours, you hang out with people who don't have something to do," Brown said.

Screened by job applications

While banks don't jump at hiring embezzlers and pharmacies don't recruit former drug users, there are some corporations and workforce centers willing to employ felons of all backgrounds. Many are entry level or construction, and often low paying.

Kendra Prospero, CEO and founder of Turning the Corner, a Boulder-based career counseling company, said employers owe it to their fellow citizens to weigh the crime before turning away a potentially qualified candidate who checks the felony box on an application.

"I know that when people are really wanting to rebuild their lives, they are some of the best employees you'll ever have," she said.

She said one of her clients was continually tossed out because of a 1980s conviction for marijuana possession, which was a felony then. She said major crimes, such as assault and embezzlement, should be looked at with more discernment since they can be a risk.

Websites such as Remerg.com list felony-friendly employers and housing, but other online databases -- such as Instant Checkmate, Spokeo and Intelius -- equip employers with free background checks.

Tefft -- who has worked at IHOP and day labor jobs -- is hoping to either connect with Ready to Work, a transitional work and housing program through Boulder Bridge House, or that his felonies will fade into the background.

It's been hard, he said, to not have a stable place to shower or sleep to feel decent enough to interview, let alone maintain employment. He said it's a norm now to be cold and damp from the recent rain and snow, and to expect his belongings to be stolen.

"I'm not going to sit at a job that I know I'm going to get fired in two or three weeks because I don't have the alarm clock to wake up or I'm going in with dirty clothes or I don't have the appropriate attire or whatever it happens to be," he said. "The stability causes issues."

He said his parents living in Longmont don't claim responsibility for him anymore, and he'd rather be homeless and see his daughters than be somewhere else. So he keeps looking for ways out.

"You have to eat, so you get up and eat," he said. "You have to live, so you've got to live. As long as you're still breathing, there's still certain things you have to do."

But without a job, felons have no way to pay rent, thus demonstrating a hard-to-break cycle.

Those dedicated to helping felons, such as Gomez, often face their own discouragement realizing that not everyone sees those convicted first as humans with skills and life stories.

"It would be nice to say it wasn't forever, but all too often that criminal background will follow you for the rest of your life," Gomez said. "We see people who are 20, 30 years out a felony conviction and it's still the reason why they don't get jobs -- because it's on their record."

Facing stigmas, self-worth

In addition to hurdles against life's basic physiological and safety needs, felons face society's stigma that they'll forever be involved in crime, thus re-punishing them even after they've served their time.

Rising awareness of how punishment and public perception impacts the likelihood of reoffense has led to youth-focused restorative justice philosophies, put into practice by the Boulder County District Attorney's Office and the Longmont Community Justice Partnership.

"The idea that those people face consequences that will limit opportunities for the rest of their lives just feels like the consequence is out of balance with the action or their intention at the time they made their choice," said Kathleen McGoey, LCJP executive director.

She said one offender who was referred to their office, and was therefore spared a blemish on his record, is now in his 20s is able to live uninhibited because of his clean background.

"I just think, what if he had been convicted with a felony as a young person?" McGoey said. "It would be coming up again and again and again with so many people that he meets, and how does that impact his own understanding of himself and his identity?"

Since Colorado began tracking data in 2015 of pilot judicial restorative justice programs, including in Boulder County, preliminary and incomplete research shows that 8.5 percent of 130 juveniles recidivated within at least six months, but less than a year, after completing their contract.

For Boulder County prosecutors, psychological state, pathology and the human condition play a large role in how they decide whether or not to felonize or send someone to prison, said Assistant District Attorney Katharina Booth.

She said unless they've been red-flagged or committed major offenses, prosecutors first exhaust county resources, such as restorative programs, community corrections and drug rehab.

For many, a second chance turns into a third, fourth, fifth and so on. For Lacey, she said she feels grateful that her one visit to prison gave her an opportunity to mature and find direction.

Before being forthcoming with her story with new people, she waits to see how the relationship unfolds because she'd rather be judged on the person she is today.

She said she's changed her name, which she requested remain concealed, and has reconciled with her son, daughter and granddaughter. She said she now manages a Colorado Springs restaurant, pays $900 for a quaint, one-bedroom apartment and recently bought a new car.

"The girls, they don't realize that you do get a second chance, but you have to want that second chance," she said. "You have to want to be able to change your lifestyle and be a different person and be a better person."

Amelia Arvesen: 303-684-5212, arvesena@times-call.com or twitter.com/ameliaarvesen

___

(c)2017 the Daily Times-Call (Longmont, Colo.)

Visit the Daily Times-Call (Longmont, Colo.) at www.timescall.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.