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Ex-Offenders Jump At New Public Housing Spots

by Melissa Bailey | Mar 29, 2010 12:02 pm

(17) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Housing, Social Services

Melissa Bailey Photo After a life in prison and a year on the streets, Joe Burgeson threw in his lot for one of 12 newly available apartments.

Burgeson (pictured), who’s 55, has been searching for a permanent home and job for 14 months, since he returned to New Haven from his latest stint in prison. A talented writer who never went to college, he won a scholarship to Gateway Community College, but had to postpone it when a tenuous housing situation fell apart.

These days Burgeson has been sleeping in a shed. He’s sober, working hard to keep from slipping back into habits that have landed him in prison for most of his life.

One state court social worker said Burgeson “stands out” from the 80 clients she works with every month—for being resourceful and persistent in the face of tough odds. As the city put together a plan to open 12 public housing spots to ex-offenders, she wrote a letter urging that he be considered.

Click here to read about the housing program, which gained official approval on March 16.

Burgeson now stands in line with over 30 people who’ve interviewed for the 12 housing spots in just a week in a half, said City Hall prison reentry coordinator Amy Meek. Interested candidates set up appointments with Meek, who also counsels them on other housing options. As she spoke, she was in the middle of conducting more interviews. The flood of interest is another sign that the demand for ex-offender support services far exceeds the supply, she said. About 25 people return to New Haven from prison every week.

For Burgeson, securing a permanent home would be a huge step in a recovery journey.

He’s come a long way.

“Mindset of Toughness”

The soft-spoken, slender man told his story at a recent interview in a downtown coffee shop. He carried a black backpack heavy with shampoo, soap, and a notebook of his poetry. When a reporter showed up, he was just finishing the Sunday New York Times crossword. He set it aside and recounted how he came to this place in life.

Burgeson grew up in Fair Haven. Early on, he said, he developed a “mindset of toughness.” By age 13, he was sent off to reform school in Meriden. Between ages 14 and 16, he got arrested dozens of times, he said, for stealing cars and petty crimes. At 16, he got arrested for burglary and ended up at the Whalley Avenue jail.

“Midnight I turned 16,” he said, “I became a criminal.”

He would spend the next decades growing into a life of crime.

In jail, he said, the guys who got the most respect were the “stickup” guys, who used the threat of force to rob stores.

“I aspired to be a stickup guy,” he said. “I became that at 21,” when he committed his first stickup.

“Then I went to prison, and the guys who got the most respect were dangerous. I became dangerous.”

Soon, he set the bar higher. He learned that the people who got the most respect were convicts.

“I became a convict,” he said.

He spent 33 out of 41 years in prison. Between 1977 and 2000, he spent only seven months on the outside. Most of the crimes—robbery, burglary, larceny—came as he struggled with addiction and sought money for drugs.

The latest stint stemmed from two robberies at Dunkin’ Donuts stores in February 2006. He said the robberies were not planned.

“I was just going on impulse,” he said, to get money for drugs.

After his arrest, something finally changed inside him, he said. The change came “in the hole,” in solitary confinement at the Whalley Avenue jail. It was a cold winter day. He lay on the floor, shivering in a jumpsuit, covered by one blanket. No one else was around—“just you and yourself.”

“I just surrendered,” he said. “I just felt a weight come off of me.”

In prison, he spent time reflecting and writing. His poem “No Passage” earned him second place in a national prison writing contest. It reads:

  I hate that door.
  It’s open when I’m out
  and locked when I’m in.
  Sometimes I kick it.
  Cold steel, dull, unyielding, indifferent.
  Not like wood.
  Wood has heart and resiliency,
  resounding with its own natural character
  when struck.

  Like a wooden door,
  I once was alive.
  And, too, I am set upon a threshold,
  neither going out or coming in.
  My life passes through me
  and doesn’t take me with it.

  I hate myself that door.
  Sometimes I kick it.

Burgeson spent 2 1/2 years in prison for his two most recent offenses. He said he’s working hard to make sure that sentence was his last.

The Search

After spending five months in a drug rehab program, Burgeson returned to New Haven. On Jan. 14, 2009, one of the coldest days of the year, he got dropped off on the Ella T. Grasso Boulevard.

That week, he said, he started looking for work. It wasn’t easy.

Having spent most of his life in prison, Burgeson doesn’t have a trade. In prison, he did janitorial work. Between prison terms, he worked a few jobs washing dishes at a restaurant.

Burgeson tried every avenue he could think of. He went up and down Chapel Street, knocking on all the doors of the restaurants, asking if they needed help in the kitchen. He applied to jobs at Yale, St. Raphael’s hospital, and in construction and landscaping.

Everywhere he asked, he said, he got the same answer: No jobs. Not for you.

“What seems to kill me is my record,” he said.

In the past 15 months, the longest he worked was three days on a roof job.

Burgeson didn’t give up. He got creative. He posted an ad on Craigslist offering to work for rent.

Meanwhile, he applied for a scholarship to start taking classes at Gateway. Both plans worked out, at first. He enrolled at Gateway. A couple in a suburban town read his Craigslist ad and took him in.

In one day, however, his housing situation fell apart. The couple sent him out on a cold, rainy night.

With no home, Burgeson couldn’t commit to studying at Gateway, he said. The strains of homelessness were too much. He withdrew before classes started and postponed the scholarship.

After that setback, he hasn’t had any more luck finding a home. There’s state aid for sober house, but it requires supplemental income, he said. Going to a shelter would put him back with the same population he’s trying to move away from, he said. “A shelter is like jail.”

So he’s been sleeping on the streets, even when it’s cold.

Burgeson is doing well on other fronts: He found a clinic where he gets methadone for neck pain. He got health care for medical problems. He said he has not used drugs in the last six months, and has been on a recovery path for four years.

“I would never imagine when I started the recovery journey that I’d still be jobless and homeless 14 months out,” he said.

“Not Giving Up”

Katie Heffernan, a social worker for the Public Defender’s Office at Superior Court on Church Street, said she finds it hard to believe, too.

“It’s surprising to me, with someone of his fortitude, that he hasn’t landed a job,” she said.

In her work, Heffernan sees a lot of people—about 80 to 85 per month—who have been convicted of serious criminal charges. She helps connect them to support services.

Heffernan (pictured) met Burgeson in 2006. Since then, Burgeson visits her a couple times a month to check in. These days, he emails every day. He checks in to vent, or ask her advice. He reaches out when he’s at his wits’ end.

When she tries to point Burgeson toward resources to find housing or a job, she said, she finds he is “several steps ahead” of her.

“I’m just always so impressed with him,” she said. “Joe really stands out in a pool of people who are struggling to make ends meet.” He stands out, she said, in his resourcefulness, his persistence, his writing talent, his capacity for self-reflection and in reaching out for help.

Heffernan racked her brain to think of a single ex-con who is currently employed. Most land jobs or homes through networks of family or friends. Burgeson has no living family. His three siblings all died at a young age, in their 30s, from drugs and alcohol, he said.

Having no home is a serious obstacle to recovery, Heffernan said. For starters, she said, having a roof over your head is an opportunity to get good, solid sleep.

“Without that, your defenses are down. So often, you go back to using drugs, or selling drugs.”

She said it’s remarkable that Burgeson has made it this far without falling back into a pattern of using drugs and committing crimes.

“It would be tremendously easy for him to resume a life that he’s lived,” she said. “That’s the kind of life that he knows. But he’s made a choice not to live that kind of life again.”

Heffernan said unlike many others in his situation, Burgeson is not to one to make excuses. He’s quick to make connections and find resources.

“It is frustrating to watch this individual struggle despite all of the effort he has exerted,” she wrote on in a letter recommending Burgeson for assistance from City Hall’s new prison reentry initiative.

Last year, he spoke at a public hearing in favor of the city’s new Ban the Box initiative, to get rid of the space on initial job applications asking if one is a convicted felon.

Burgeson said that question—Have you ever been convicted of a felony?—is the biggest obstacle between him and a job.

“Your slate’s wiped clean—that’s the biggest lie of the criminal justice,” he said.

No matter how much time you do, he said, “your debts are never paid.”

Legislators are now pushing to ban the box at the state level. Burgeson, who has a pending application for seasonal work with the parks department, is holding out hope for a job and a home.

“I’m not giving up,” he said, “but I could see where someone does.” 

 

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posted by: Larry on March 29, 2010  3:39pm

I’m sorry if i sound cold blooded but how is this guy to be trusted by an employer?  Hes on methadone which is basically a drug and has a history of armed robbery.  Would you let him in your business? I mean the guy is just months removed from prison.  That suburban couple that took him in his quite courageous and a bit lucky they still own their possessions.  Hopefully he turns his life around but he has a long way to go to rebuild his reputation.  Keep up the good work Joe and hopefully someone gives you a chance and you prove your on the straight and narrow.  Just call me skeptical thats all.

posted by: Lyda Dixon on March 29, 2010  4:38pm

Just read the article about ex-offender moving back into public housing. I think the social experimentor are not being realistic. Once a drug addicted always a addict. It was mentioned in a article that I read that they did not receive treatment in prison.

Yes, they need employment but there are many people in public housing who need gainful employment who has not committed criminal acts
against others and must pay rent.

There are people whose lives have been totally disrupted by the acts of these offender but no
one has offered to provide them free housing,free counselling, or mercy for their broken and dismembered lives.  They had too struggle alone and maintain themselves in a environment who consider them weak because the offender action destroyed their spirit and showed their loves one no mercy.

So where should they live? I answer that with this question? Have they paid their debt by living behind walls for several years while those they injured were locked in graves
of despair. Can a leopard change his spots and
live peaceable with the lamb.Or should the lamb
always live in fear of the leopards natural behavior. No justice no peace.

posted by: from the hill- on March 29, 2010  7:36pm

joe burgeson was on a crime spree tear in the early 2000’s. he was a dangerous,dangerous criminal.his spree brought him in to the hill neighborhood.during that time. in addition to his criminal acts, he was a con-man.i hope his life to live drug-free( methadone is a drug) is sincere, not another con.time will tell. good luck to burgeson and the hill residents.

posted by: Anon on March 29, 2010  8:22pm

I dunno, this is really hard. I hate that Connecticut has the highest incarceration rate in the world, yes, per capita, in the world, and the country.

It is a time bomb. It creates the largest marginalized permanent population in the world, per capita. That isn’t good for society at all.

Also, prison is ridiculously expensive for tax payers and inmates seem to get little out of it.

This is hard in another way too: Despite the economic crisis, I have heard nothing about the housing authority relaxing their good credit requirement for applicants. Meanwhile, Fortune 500 companies have, for jobs, because so many who have always had good credit don’t now, thanks to Wall Street greed and dishonesty.

It is 12 people, so lets see how it goes.

I think it pays to remember that in the old days, before state and federal aid, each town in Connecticut was obligated to support the poor people of the town with its own funds. It pays to remember that because if we pretend it is still like that, we make better judgments about programs for the poor. It helps to give perspective.

We still pay for it, but via national and state taxes and probably local funds help too. It is more remote. Too remote, really.

And inmate drop off has become a state decision now so that inmates are dropped off only in specific cities in Connecticut, a really bizarre program that I was surprised to learn about a couple years ago.

There is no doubt New Haven is overwhelmed by our criminalization of drugs, our overincarceration, our prison drop offs and our giant federally funded, complex and sophisticated poverty programs. These are programs that tend to skew and obscure the very local, the community, as much of it is out of our control and exist here but are not part of our local identity. It is regional, national, state. Just the prison drop off program alone is an example of that.

The bigger and more impersonal things get, the less accountability there is too. Much of New Haven is totally, utterly beyond us and the same could be said for every town in some way or another.

This dissapates our strength.

Weighing Burgeson’s case here as I write this and thinking of a few people I know in public housing right now, there are three I would trade out for him. I think he may be more deserving than they are. They are con artists and crooks too, but they are not even admitting it. They are convinced they are owed what they ruin others to get and haven’t been caught for half of what they do.

posted by: Joseph Burgeson on March 30, 2010  3:25pm

I’ve just read some readers’ comments, and I tell you, I’m learning as I go out here. I guess I always knew that people thought that way, but to encounter it personally is more impacting. I’ve gotta say, some of you people out here are whacked. I didn’t ask to be in this forum, the reporter contacted the court about doing a story on someone who’d gotten out of prison, I was recommended, and when asked, I agreed. All I would say is give me a chance, that’s all. Give me a chance. I bet I work harder than 90 percent of the people who have jobs, and as hard as everyone else. Just give me a chance. As Ms. Bailey quoted me as saying in the article, and from what I’ve just seen in these readers’ comments about her article on me, the debt is never paid, the slate is never wiped clean. As long as there are criminal records, and as long as people think the way these readers apparently do, the debt is never paid, no matter how many years they take from you, no matter how long your soul is destroyed a little at a time in prison, the debt is never paid. It’s a lie. But despite that lie, and despite the closed, little minds of people like you, I will make it. Becaus I want to. I wasn’t born in prison, here, in society, is where I was born. And it’s here in society that I’ll die. Not in prison. And I’ll have a life out here, too, before I do die, in spite of all of you, if need be.

posted by: monster.con on March 30, 2010  6:11pm

Where are all of the New Haven bleeding hearts on this one?  Come on, step up!

posted by: Anon on March 30, 2010  9:03pm

Mr. Burgeson, I supported your application to public housing in the post just above yours. And by the way, I wasn’t kidding, so be careful of some of the people in public housing if you are accepted into it. Some of them are up to no good and will set you up in a NY minute. Most are OK though.

I want to tell you something, to give you some perspective on this job market.

People with no criminal record have been out of a job for a year, 18 months and longer.  This is the worst job market in memory for anyone who wasn’t working age during the Great Depression. 

So know that and hang in there. There are CFOs living in their cars, no joke, competing with you for dishwashing jobs.

Most of the people posting don’t hate you, they just maybe can’t forgive you, and fear you. Debt is one thing. They want to experience you enough to be able to say I trust this guy. That’s something you do one person at a time.

If prison is no longer an option for you, then this part you are going through now, this is the worst of it. So hang in there.

Sometimes forgiveness doesn’t come until you’ve conquered surviving straight and actually made enough of a life to give back to others, whether it is with your writing, or as a good neighbor looking out for others. It’s worth it. Life is good then.

The people you know and come to know personally are going to be key to your future reputation, the larger prejudice may always be there in one form or another. You have to ignore it for now. The small things are the key to big things.

posted by: Joseph Burgeson on March 31, 2010  12:48pm

I’d like to add some comments, if I may, since I don’t see how I can edit my earlier comments. Firstly, I realize now, reading my own comments, that I came off sounding bitter. Maybe I am, and maybe seeing those readers’ comments tapped into it. However, what I really wished to say is that overall I wasn’t surprised at the readers’ comments. I’ve been encountering such closed outlooks for years, and especially in the last 14 months that I’ve been out. But despite such views, such biases, it’s really on me as to whether I make it or not. I think it was very useful that the editors chose to let Lyda Dixon express her opinion that a leopard can’t change its spots. Because I’m a human being, not a leopard. And one of the wonderful qualities given to mankind by God, or by Nature if one prefers, is the ability to change. Change is how we grow, and I’m finding that the capacity for change is pretty much unlimited, and depends on how much an individual wants to change. The Lord has been good to me, very good. He, through other human beings like Beth Merkin, Katie Heffernan, Jim Clark, and Judge Damiani, to name a few, has given me another chance at life, to change and grow into the human being He gave me the capacity, and the choice, to be. And I am so grateful, and have been since I surrendered, that often my eyes well up with tears in just pure joy at the greatness of being alive and having another chance at it. Ms. Bailey mentioned in her article that my brothers and sister died from addiction, and it’s true. They never got the chance to know that they didn’t have to live like that any more, as I have. And so I’m grateful for them, too. That’s all I want to say. Thank you.

posted by: Brian on March 31, 2010  5:55pm

I have sympathy for those in Joseph’s situation because I kind of know what it is like. I have a misdemeanor conviction and it is hard to get a job with any conviction at all especially felonies. I am also a heroin addict that has been clean for half a year so I also know what it is like to try and get those vicious monkeys off your back. It is hard when the chips are down and you have no where to go and you’re trying to stay positive and stay clean and you just got out of the joint. I didn’t do nearly as much time as Joseph did, I just did 6 months .Drugs are terrible because they make you commit crimes you would never commit if you weren’t on the drugs, at least thats how I feel about them.  I’m not saying some people don’t deserve it because they do, i’m just saying jail is not fun. Joseph I think you just need to stay positive man, things are rough especially in this economy. No matter how discouraged you get though, don’t use because if you use you will ruin everything you have worked so hard for, and it will just make it harder for you to get back up again.I love heroin, trust me,  but I have gained so much of my life back just from these 6 months of sobriety that there is no way I want to go back. I just hope you can gain your life back as well. Just take it one day at a time.

posted by: Eric Mayo on March 31, 2010  8:21pm

I answer questions for ex-offenders and felons looking for jobs at my blog: http://howfelonscangetjobs.blogspot.com

posted by: laverdad on April 1, 2010  3:42am

i’m living outside of USA…after reading some of the readers comments, i myself want to say something here…especially to Mr. Joseph…..as from what you have wrote it seems that you know the Lord and i believe that you’re a believer…you know. people can judge and say whatever they want to say but i want to quote this scripture from 2corinthians 5:17 IF ANYONE IS IN CHRIST HE IS A NEW CREATION, THE OLD HAS PAST AWAY, BEHOLD THE NEW HAS COME…i’ve seen many, many drug addicts, convicts and others, changed by God’s grace…im working in prison ministry and we saw it with our own eyes…im touched by your story…and YES, a leopard cant change it spots because they were made to be that way, its their nature..and we human were created into His likeness and eventhough the ‘human record’ cannot erased what you did in the past God can blot away all your sins if you have repented and turn from evil the Lord will not bring it into memory again…there is hope..hang on there…

ill keep you and others who went thru the same situation like you, in my prayer:)

posted by: anon on April 1, 2010  9:02pm

Thanks for putting that poem in. I thought there was something wrong with it. You actually edited it and there was no way to know. You can’t edit poems, you can excerpt one stanza with a full disclosure but you can’t just skip over parts. So thanks for adding the full poem.

posted by: Dorothy on April 1, 2010  11:21pm

I am an acquaintance of Joe Burgeson. He attends,weekly, the catholic Church in New Haven where my family worships. We hold a “coffee and” after mass and I have always noticed how willing Joe is to help out for this and other church functions as well. He is a very hard and dedicated worker. I have also noticed Joe walking with blisters on his feet,while trudging the city streets, in ill fitting shoes,looking for work. I also know of the back and hip pain he has from sleeping on a cold floor. I have seen him come to church wet and freezing due to the elements. Yet he is hopeful. I also am hopeful. Hopeful that he will be given the opportunity for one of the 12 apartments thru the New Haven program. From the pulpit we are asked to “pray for the homeless”-“pray for the hungry”-pray for the lonely”-“pray for those in transition” etc. I sincerely wish these prayers will be answered for Joe and for others. I would like to see him be given a chance to finally succeed. Good Luck!

posted by: nero on April 1, 2010  11:36pm

In response to Anon, who claimed that “Connecticut has the highest incarceration rate in the world, yes, per capita, in the world, and the country.”

That is not true. According to the National Institute of Corrections, Connecticut had an incarceration rate of 410 per 100,000 residents in 2007. The national average in 2007 was 447 per 100,000 residents. Louisiana has the worst incarceration rate in the U.S. with 865 per 100,000 residents.

posted by: Anon on April 6, 2010  10:33pm

Nero,

Wow. I am not often totally wrong on a fact of that much import.

After reading your post I questioned this stat which I had assumed was sound.

I tried to remember my source for it. There was at least one, a CPTV documentary on Connecticut incarceration might have been one and apparently I remembered it wrong. CPTV should not be treated as a source, but reporting on a source anyway. I think I saw some chart which I now think I must have grossly misread.

At any rate,  I wasn’t taking notes, just relaxing and watching the program, perusing stats. But what a blunder, I mean really.

I started looking up what you said and it appears to be quite true, Louisiana would have the highest rate per capita in the world, two or three years ago at least. Probably now too. anyway.

Maybe it was in one category that Connecticut led, though that seems unlikely looking at its total numbers. Connecticut apparently leads the Northeast, but that is a far cry from leading the nation.

Thanks for pointing this out. That was quite an extreme error.

I am still trying to hunt down the exact program or info I still vaguely remember as being the source to see if I was mislead by it or misled myself by not looking at it closely enough.

posted by: nero on April 7, 2010  9:09am

Anon: We all occasionally get facts wrong. You admitted the error with clarity and grace. Thanks.

On another note, Connecticut obviously has a long way to go to be able to brag about having a civilized criminal justice and prison system. U.S. incarceration rates in every state are a disgrace and unacceptable.

posted by: Joseph Burgeson on April 9, 2010  11:17am

It’s been almost two weeks since Melissa Bailey’
s article on me appeared in the Independent, and after just now scanning the later readers’ comments, I want to thank those who posted supporting comments. I’m grateful that the reality is that there are more of you than the folks who expressed such negative comments. And it’s a far better world for having you folks in it. Thank the Lord. Thank you.

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