Offering Troubled Lives a Fresh Start

Jerome Young, 19, no longer hangs out on the streets selling drugs and living in fear of death threats.

Steve Lent, 28, got tired of bouncing in and out of custody, a pattern he had known since he was 11.

Both are residents of the Men of Valor Academy, a 2-year-old program in East Oakland that offers troubled men a chance to turn their lives around. The participants join the program voluntarily.

“It evolved after looking at the homicides in the city of Oakland,” said the Rev. Bob Jackson, who developed the program and runs it out of a converted church in one of the toughest areas of town. “We came to the conclusion [that the homicide rate] was caused by a lack of money. These men were out there killing each other for dope turf.”

Oakland’s homicide rate is escalating; it stands at 107 deaths so far this year -- seven more than last year at the same time. City officials, police, clergy and residents have met to discuss the murders and possible solutions, but the homicides have continued.

Jackson, pastor of Acts Full Gospel Church in Oakland, thinks he has the answer to the epidemic of murder in urban core areas across the country. He says that if men receive skills in the construction trades, they will earn enough to avoid the lure of the streets.

The academy, funded with a two-year, $500,000 grant from former Gov. Gray Davis’ office and donations from Jackson’s 7,124-member congregation, has evolved to include a job-training segment.

The program focuses initially on character development, including self-esteem, anger management, identification of triggers that cause the men to relapse into negative behavior, and even money management. There’s also a spiritual element, and exercise to help defuse anger.

After the first phase, participants attend classes. Some study for their high school equivalency degrees; others polish up their math and language skills. The final component of the program is learning carpentry, plumbing, roofing and other construction trades.

Jackson, 57, a building inspector in Oakland and nearby Union City before becoming a minister 20 years ago, said his program emphasizes construction skills because it’s a field that doesn’t discriminate against men with criminal records. When the men finish their training, they’ll be able to land jobs as apprentices earning $15 to $30 an hour, he said.

The vocational part of the program is so new -- it began in August -- that none of the men in the academy has completed it. But Jackson has high hopes.

So does Oakland Police Chief Richard Word, who toured the academy earlier this year.

“I met with some of the men and folks working there,” he said. “I was just really impressed with it. It seems to be the way we should go.”

Oakland’s escalating homicide rate has prompted Word to visit other programs, halfway houses and San Quentin State Prison to see what services are available. He has found that many of the programs give men only part of what they need to turn their lives around, and that there are long waits to get admitted.

“When they leave prison, they have no marketable skills,” he said. “They get 200 bucks and a bus ticket.”

In Oakland alone, there are 2,800 to 3,000 parolees, Word said.

Mayor Jerry Brown is expected to visit the academy this week, and Jackson plans to seek city financial support for the program.

Jackson intends to expand the academy, which has 37 men, by 20 residents by the first of the year, and then eventually increase it to 100. Men of Valor, which has a waiting list, accepts men 18 to 35 years old.

The program generally takes 15 months to complete. Five men, who completed their high school equivalency degrees and got jobs, graduated early. Ten more are due to finish in January, and all have been guaranteed jobs by members of an African American contractors group that has agreed to work with the academy, Jackson said.

He has not tracked recidivism, because the program is so new.

When it began, Jackson said, he accepted men with drug problems. He no longer does, because it caused too much trouble, but once those who abuse drugs are clean, they are welcome.

In all, he estimated that about 50 men have dropped out of the academy. More than 20 were suspended after they failed drug tests. Others have been suspended for fighting.

Jackson said he is working with a Sacramento group to open an outpatient drug treatment clinic in that area in a church-owned building in February. It would be separate from the academy.

The academy has a director, four counselors and two teachers.

Director Tom Bowden, 65, said he could relate to the men because he had been in prison, was a drug addict and was homeless.

At the academy on International Boulevard, a group of men inside the former sanctuary were recently practicing how to frame a house.

Among them was Young, who said he had been dealing drugs and stealing before entering the academy. “I was just trying to be cool with the fellows,” he said.

Finally, after getting into an argument with some men in nearby Richmond, where he was living at the time, he said, “word on the street was they wanted to kill me.”

At his mother’s urging, he moved in with his grandmother in Oakland to escape the threat. His cousin took him to church one Sunday, where he learned about the program.

“It’s wonderful in this academy,” Young said. “Just the structure. Also, the pastor saved my life.”

Lent, a former member of a Northern California gang who has several tattoos, said the turning point came when he realized he was sick of cycling in and out of prison.

The son of drug-addicted parents who died when he was young, he said he has mostly been in custody since age 11. His longest period out of prison in the last 10 years has been the past seven months in the academy.

When he first entered the program, he gave up and left after six weeks. But after the director and two counselors came to see him at his grandmother’s house, he was persuaded to return.

Lent, who had earned his high school equivalency degree at age 16 while in California Youth Authority custody, said he knew nothing about computers until he came to the academy. Now, he loves working in the computer lab, where he’s learned how to do spreadsheets and a resume.

Until he arrived at the academy, he said, he had never been to a library or a baseball game -- outings he has since taken with staff.

His teacher encouraged him to express his artistic and language skills. An intricate etching of a rose and a poem he wrote are posted on the wall.

On weekends, he goes home for visits with his wife and two daughters, ages 6 and 2. But what he seems most amazed by is his new sense of self.

“They don’t judge me for my past,” Lent said of his mentors at the academy. “They look at me for me. They look at the goodness I never knew I had.”