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Community center now open to serve ex-inmates, others Richmond jail program expands to community center downtown

Richmond Times-Dispatch - 12/18/2017

A community center has opened its doors in downtown Richmond, providing a landing spot for those just released from jail and those battling addiction.

The REAL Life Community Center is part of the nonprofit arm that is expanding the Richmond City Justice Center's REAL program outside of the jail and into the community in hopes of continuing the behavior modification, recovery and rehabilitation many former inmates started behind bars. But the center also will serve those not associated with the jailhouse program.

The program and nonprofit's founder, Sarah Scarbrough, who directs internal programs at the jail, said she hopes the center can provide help before people find themselves incarcerated for what amounts to an illness.

"We do hope that folks will come here for help, so they don't have to go to the jail for treatment," she said. "There are so many folks in the community that are living the lifestyle, but a lot of them genuinely don't want to be doing what they're doing, but they don't know another way and don't know an escape."

Scarbrough continues to get calls from former participants of the REAL program, which stands for Recovering From Everyday Addictive Lifestyles, who have been released but are not finding the resources they need to keep from relapsing or reoffending. Top that with calls from inmates at other jails, and community members who want to participate, and Scarbrough said she has to tell them that unless they get locked up in Richmond, there's not much she can do for them.

"While we have REAL Life and some services, there have never been full-time staff. So the amount of services and support that can be provided to them is limited," she said. "That's why they opened a community center."

One of those calls was from James Bullock, who was released from jail in August after serving a year-and-a-half for drug distribution.

He had been in and out of jail all his life, he said.

"By now, I would have been into something. She made me believe," Bullock said of Scarbrough. "They taught me I don't have to do that."

Bullock, his wife and child moved into their own place - it's the first time Bullock has had his name on a lease, he said. He took pride in receiving, and paying, his first bill.

He left school around the fifth grade, Bullock said. He came into the jail with a second-grade reading level, Scarbrough said, but by the time he left, he had passed one part of his GED exam. He's now studying for the other parts to earn a high school diploma, and had a job interview last week.

"This is a whole new life for me," Bullock said.

On opening day, he volunteered as the receptionist, greeting people as they came in and signing them up for an initial assessment, which determines the range of services they require from one-on-one case management, job skills, budgeting, counseling, anger management classes, Bible study and 12-step meetings.

Within hours of opening Dec. 6, Scarbrough said they had nine people signed up - nearly halfway to her goal of 20 clients per month.

The center's annual operating budget is slightly under $270,000 with just two full-time case managers on staff. That breaks down to about $1,320 per client per year. Compare that to the cost of incarceration, which in Virginia is between $30,000 and $35,000, Scarbrough said: "It's an incredible bargain."

The Wheless Family Stewardship Trust pledged to cover 75 percent of the center's budget for the first two years, and 50 percent for years three and four.

Mark Wheless, whose family from outside Charlottesville runs the trust, said they began talking with Scarbrough, who mentioned the "far-fetched idea" of a community center, just six months ago.

"Here we are," he said at the grand opening event earlier this month. "Not only is someone coming to the program able to have support to sustain their recovery, but if they choose to, they can go far beyond that to the thriving life."

The center also has applied for grants, like one just awarded from Dominion, and has received donations from individuals and churches. The Chesterfield County Sheriff's Office, which works closely with the REAL program at the Richmond jail, donated $200.

"We're so excited about having something like this in the community," said Chesterfield sheriff's Capt. Eric Jones. "Regardless of whether it's in Chesterfield or not, it's an opportunity for someone to get out of jail and be able to go somewhere that's going to help them."

Richmond Circuit Court Judge William R. Marchant, who oversees drug court in Richmond, said he has been impressed with the work of the REAL program in the jail. He's happy to have another resource for the disposition of cases.

Outgoing Sheriff C.T. Woody Jr. donated $5,000 of leftover funds from his unsuccessful bid for a fourth term at the grand opening. Sheriff-elect Antionette V. Irving also attended the event. Irving has not indicated whether she will keep the REAL program at the jail, only saying she was "reviewing this program as any other and will put out there what's best for the residents and the city."

Irving added that she envisioned having some rehabilitative programs. "We want good citizens when they come out," she said.

Scarbrough said she does not know what the change of leadership means for her job security, but that the center was not a fail-safe in case she found herself out of a job in the new year. Everything, from the money to the space, came together quickly, she said.

One stumbling block was finding a location. The nonprofit's board initially looked in the Blackwell community in South Richmond, where the REAL House is located. It's a recovery house for men leaving the jail that opened this summer, and REAL Life's first substantive out-of-jail expansion. The men have to commit to living in the home for six months to finish the REAL curriculum, which takes more than six months - longer than the average stay at the jail.

The idea for the home, and eventually the community center, originated after a study released in May showed that the REAL program successfully reduced recidivism only in individuals who participated in the program for more than 90 days. The University of Richmond study found that 30 percent of the individuals who participated for longer than three months reoffended within a year of release, compared with a 55 percent recidivism rate for those who did not participate. There was no difference between those who participated for a shorter length of time and those who did not participate at all.

That means the longer the men and women are exposed to behavior modification-based programs, the better they do. Scarbrough said that necessitated taking the program outside of the jail.

When looking for the center's location, Scarbrough thought to centralize near the house in Blackwell, but rental property owners there were not willing to work with that at-risk population. So she started looking elsewhere and found a 5,000-square-foot space on Main Street downtown. While not ideal, it's on a bus line and not far from South Richmond or the jail - nor does it overlap geographically with other resource-heavy areas like Scott's Addition or the McShin Foundation in Henrico County.

"We are arresting and locking up the wrong people. We are locking up those that are mentally ill. We are locking up those that are sick and addicted to opiates and drugs and alcohol and all of that kind of stuff," Woody said. "We have to stop sending them to the jail to get treatment for their causes and their problems. We need to prevent them from coming to jail.

"This is just the beginning."

arockett@timesdispatch.com(804) 649-6527Twitter: @AliRockettRTD