John, you mentioned the last time me and you talked that when you were trying to achieve
your vision and your goal, you had a lot of political setbacks.
What were some of the things that you faced and how did you overcome them?
Well, I was, I think, rather naive when I said that my wife and I would like to open
our home and help people who are homeless and then particularly coming from prison.
We thought with low-risk offenders coming back to the community that it would be welcomed
as a positive social action.
And what happened was it was immediately faced with neighbors who were very concerned that
we're going to be bringing whatever those people are into the community.
And there were petitions passed, there were meetings with the council, there were very
heated threats, there were letters to the editor.
For one year, I was the number one news article in the local newspaper.
And it was, their ordinances passed, letters to the editor, a little 10-year-old girl wrote
to the newspaper saying she was afraid to go to school because my house was in her neighborhood.
And that's the sort of fear-mongering.
It's very similar to what is being experienced in Springfield, Ohio now, which is actually
only an hour's drive away from here, where small rural towns have a tendency to think
that issues are in the big cities among minorities.
But what was statistically, all the issues in prison are predominantly white.
We like to think it's somebody else, but with drugs now in particular, it's not just those
people, it's my people, it's my cousins, it's my children.
Or now we find it's even my parents with prescription medication that has gone into addiction, which
led to heroin.
We found that addiction is not an equal opportunity offender, it strikes everybody.
And what that did was it brought home what we were doing much closer to home, to our
neighbors.
And eventually, initially I tried to bring the data in and say, if you look at the statistics,
and I had reams of data that I brought to the council meeting, and we would present
the facts and the cost-saving effects, but nobody heard that.
It was purely an emotional fear response, very much like we're seeing in today's politics.
So what I determined, that I was not going to get into the name calling, I wasn't going
to get into accusations, I wasn't going to defend myself, I was simply going to stay
within the law, do what the law allowed me to do, but do it in a way that was a good
neighbor.
The most notable example was that we, in winter, when the snow came and covered the streets
and sidewalks, I took my snow blower and plowed everybody's sidewalk on the block, and I made
sure that my neighborhood looked better than it had before the storm, and I never said
a word.
Now, nobody said a word back to me, but over time, they noticed that we were not causing
the problems, our residents were quiet, we were not creating the issues, and also, we
ended up suing the city three times.
So there's one thing to be a good neighbor, but sometimes you have to be a good legal
scholar too.
And we won, and ultimately, what happened was the ordinances that were passed were rescinded,
and we began to operate one, two, and three houses.
And ultimately, we moved most of our operation into nearby Dayton, which is a much, much
larger city, and because they are much more aware of these issues in the city than they
are in small towns, they actually welcomed us with open arms, and that's when we grew
to 19 homes, when we actually were in three counties right now.
But it took seven years, and there were days when the conflict was at its worst, that I
would go to the local restaurant and have a private conversation, somebody would overhear
it, and I'd see that conversation on Facebook that afternoon, and they always twisted it.
And that's why in today's political climate, I understand perfectly what some of our politicians
feel when everything they say gets twisted and turned by people who are just afraid.
Wow.
I can't imagine the fight you fought for.
I had police protection at one meeting.
That's amazing.
Wow.
Yeah, it was very, very intense.
Now, in my novel, I use this as an example, a fictionalized example, but it's based on
some reality of what, anytime you have prison issues, and anytime it's in the community,
the attitude is, not in my backyard.
And that's why we said, put them in prison, lock them up, give them life sentences.
I had an attorney tell me that, just put them somewhere else.
And of course, somewhere else is somebody else's neighborhood.
So it's an emotional response.
People don't want it.
People don't want to deal with it.
That's exactly right.
Exactly.
And what we found in 1980s, when we decided to get tough on drugs, which made sense at
one point, because drugs seemed to be running rampant.
And we said, 10-year sentences, 20-year sentences, life sentences, and some of them were for
minor drug issues.
And what we did was, we filled the prisons, then we built more prisons, then we built
more prisons.
But eventually, all those people come home.
And when they come home, they're coming without any skills, they're coming without any training,
they're coming without any support.
So now we're back, not to the beginning, we're back to before the beginning.
We're in the hole.
And that's where we changed our attitude in Ohio, instead of locking them up, we tried
to see if we can keep people in the community so they have support, and then they have a
job, and they have the ability to pay taxes and child support.
And everybody benefits if somebody has a job and a place to live.
And that's how we're able to be successful.
Now, dang, that's what you have done, John, I commend you for that.
I want to talk now about the business side of things.
How did you take this model, and when your wife was working and supporting you and the
family, how did you take that part and make it to a business that actually supports you
and the family now?
And what was that journey like?
Well, I'd been in construction business, so I knew how to operate a small business, much
smaller than we had here.
So I knew enough about construction to buy a house and fix up an old place.
So the market was very slow when we started expanding.
It was in 2008.
So I was able to find houses that were costing $20,000 or $30,000 for a duplex.
And we were able to renovate them.
It took time and it took a lot of sweat, but we're able to renovate them by using our labor
instead of having a lot of money.
And we also, what little money we had, we invested our personal funds into this.
So when my wife got a small inheritance from her parents when they passed, we put that
into Good Samaritan home rather than use it for ourselves.
And I had no salary for five years.
We lived on my wife's McDonald's management income.
And we lived in a house under construction while we're doing all this for 14 years.
Our first house was constantly under construction, even while we're trying to do the other houses
that we were remodeling.
So it was, in fact, I gave my wife a wonderful Christmas present.
I gave her a table saw, so you can imagine, because we needed that for the work.
And it was not uncommon to walk through the house with wires hanging, insulation hanging,
because we were always under construction.
But what I did was, in the beginning, I contacted an accountant, I contacted an attorney, and
I had them help me walk through the legal issues.
And what we do is that all my finances are run through the accountant to make sure that
everything is completely above board, because we became a legal nonprofit corporation.
And that means we're scrutinized in a different way by the IRS.
So we had to make sure that we do everything above board.
And so the money doesn't come to me that we get for our work.
It comes to the corporation through the accountants.
And I get a salary like everybody else does.
That's awesome.
And how long until this was sustaining your family?
We started legally in 2001.
IRS approved us in 2003.
And it was five years.
So that would make it probably 2008, when we were able to get a small contract with
the Ohio Department of Corrections to house homeless men coming from prison.
We had a contract for four beds, and they paid us per diem, because we charge nothing
for our service to the residents.
We provide free housing in a furnished boarding house, we call it.
And they can stay for two, three, four, five, six months or a year, as long as they abide
by the house rules.
And that's housekeeping curfew.
Basically you respect your housemates.
It's a mentoring program.
It teaches basic life skills.
And so I got a minimal salary in 2008, five years.
And then as our bed numbers increased, we bought another house and bought another house.
And again, we used our own funds.
And we're able to invest any money we had in that.
And when we expanded, our contract increased.
And so now we have a contract for give or take 80 people a day.
And we are paid up per diem for that.
And it's because of our longstanding relationship with the Department of Corrections that we
are fiscally accountable and our program is accountable.
And both are audited.
And so the idea is when you develop trust with your partners, then you're able to expand
and grow readily because we can lean on one another.
Yeah, wow.
That's amazing to me, what you've achieved, John.
I want to get to the meat and potatoes about your vision now.
The lives that changed are more important than anything else, I think, that you've achieved.
I would love to hear some of the stories of the lives of people that you have changed,
John, for the better.
We don't, most people look at recidivism or the return to prison rate because that drives
all the numbers.
How many people go back to prison?
And that was the reason for the initial push for the program because 50 to 60% of men and
women were going back to prison within three years.
So the idea was if you put people in the community, they'll be more stable and housing was the
key.
So we don't track recidivism, but what we look at is anecdotally.
For example, if somebody stays with us three months and gets a job and moves on, we call
that a success because we've done our part.
So I would say if we have, say we get on any given year 500 referrals, we may have to terminate
for failure to comply with, we don't even track the numbers, but I would say we probably
have no more than a dozen or two dozen people who don't comply.
And we have to say, you have to leave or they get arrested for some reason.
Most people I found coming from prison just want to get back with their lives.
They want a job, they want to get their own place, and hopefully they want to get a family
of some sort.
So I just heard this week that one of our very first residents, his name was Walter,
he came to us after being in prison for nine years.
He was 16 years old when he was locked up and he came to us and he came from Washington,
DC.
So he was in a coming from the city, came, he got arrested in Ohio.
So he's in Ohio prison.
He came to us and he was a black man in a white rural community.
And of course, obviously, he'd just been in prison for a third of his life.
He was very nervous, but he was, he was willing to work and try.
And over time, we were able to connect him with a mentor who owned a vineyard and the
mentor said, I can hire you.
And he, Walter had never had a job, so he taught him how to work in a vineyard, how
to work in a winery.
And so that was, that must have been at least a dozen years ago.
And Walter has since, I just learned, because he moved out, he stayed with us for several
years and he stayed at that job and he's still there today and he's a manager in the vineyard.
And he just got married and he bought a house in our same neighborhood.
Now Walter is a glaring example of success because we didn't do anything different.
We offered him a hand up and he took it.
And the same thing happened with Reggie, our very first resident.
He came to us with the same story, very nervous in a white community.
But in time, he came with us with a very strong work ethic because he wanted to reunite with
his daughter and he wanted to make up for those lost years.
And eventually he got a job and he's driving a truck.
And then about a month ago, he called me and I hadn't heard from him for several years.
He said, I want you to know I'm still working, driving long distance.
I'm still married and I just read your book.
So we had a good time talking about that.
But what he was saying was, I want to give back to you a little of what you've given
to me.
Now that's clearly a success.
So those are just two examples.
And I bet you have countless of these examples over the last 10, 15 years.
Maybe a more not tragic one, but a more realistic one, more common one would be Jimmy, who was
schizophrenic.
He was 67 years old when he came to us.
He was living in his truck in the winter.
He was near dead because of the weather.
And he came to us and we took him in for a short term and a longer term and longer term.
And eventually he stayed with us 14 years until he eventually died at 81.
And what he said when he was near dead, he said, I want you to know this was the only
home I ever had.
Now that to me was an even greater success because Jimmy had nowhere to go and he'd never
had a home that he could call a home until he came to us.
And so sometimes the best you can offer some place is somebody is a place to die in peace.
And that's what we did.
That's amazing.
I have one more question for you, John.
And that will be the end of today's segment.
Where do you see your program that you established going?
Or where do you want to take it?
I never saw we would be where we are today.
We've gone from no budget.
Our first year, I think we had $5,000.
Our budget now is almost $2 million a year.
And I have 10 staff.
And what I'm doing now is trying to transfer my vision, not to run the business, but I
want them to run the when I say ministry, that sounds slight, but it's an act, an ongoing
act of compassion to people who don't deserve it, but who desperately need it.
And so what I teach people is that we are not parole officers.
We are not we're not the church.
We're not here to give away a free lunch.
We're simply here to offer a hand up.
But the key element is there's a place where the law ends and our people begin.
And so I'm trying to teach them mercy.
And there are days when I feel like I'm whistling in the wind.
And there are days when my staff really gets it.
And that's when I know that I can pass on this work.
So we we have 19 homes now we're looking to buy another one, because we're at capacity.
And I know the staff I've got can run that beyond me because I'm 76.
And a lot of my energy now is not in the day to day.
It's in what we are doing here.
I'm promoting this whole concept of second chances universally, because I think more
now than ever, we're in an age that's very hostile.
It's very frightened.
People are angry and they're there and it may easily get worse than it is today.
So what my goal is with these podcasts and with my book is to share the message of second
chances and to share hope.
So I want to be the spokesperson for hope in the community that I feel desperately needs
to hear that word.
Jesus, one of the biggest quotes, I think, is how many times am I supposed to forgive
my neighbor?
Yes, he says seven times 70.
And a lot of times, people don't take it literally enough.
And I think your program does exactly that.
And I will admit, you know, there's a thin balance between holding people accountable
where it's and then offering them mercy.
And we're constantly when's the time to let somebody go?
When is it time to have an early curfew or to say you cannot have your privileges because
of this?
Because sometimes I think we're teaching seventh graders because we don't use the term rehabilitate.
We use the term habilitate.
We're teaching new skills, not trying to remind people of old skills.
So I think the biggest vision I have now is passing on the vision of hope and mercy to
my staff.
So it will grow well beyond me.
That's amazing.
Thank you for sharing that with me, John, today.
Well, my privilege, my privilege, Harry.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.