A Stop Along Rocky Road to Recovery : Halfway House in North Park Helps Women Ex-Offenders Get Back on Track

This is not some sleazy, dead-cat slum. That surprises, even startles, newcomers to New Entra Casa.

This is one of the tonier neighborhoods of North Park-- yes , North Park--where lawns are lovingly manicured and houses sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

This is the Pershing Drive estate of New Entra Casa, a live-in home for women ex-offenders who range from 19 to 65 in age and have committed crimes as petty as petty burglary and as savage as second-degree murder.

A New Beginning

No woman convicted of murder lives here now. But New Entra Casa--which, roughly translated, means house of a new beginning--has, in the past, given such women shelter from the storm. Most average a six-month stay.

Four women (out of a maximum of six) now stay at New Entra Casa, and, at 4 p.m. earlier this week, three were at work. One was at a construction site, another at a produce market.

Chloe was at home. She was sprawled on the couch, silhouetted by the sun streaming in through a stained-glass window. Nearby was the bookcase, which contained such volumes as “Explaining Crime” and “Introduction to Criminology.”

Most of these women, Chloe included, need no introduction to criminology.

Chloe, who asked that her real name not be used since a judge has yet to sentence her, has been at the home two weeks so authorities can see whether she functions well in the less-structured confines of New Entra Casa. She’s not the typical tenant.

“They want to see if I’d be better suited here than in prison,” she said.

Chloe said she got “messed up bad” in a drug deal. She said she told someone else whom to see for buying dope, and that got her nailed. She considers it guilt by association.

She describes New Entra Casa as a halfway house in every sense of that time-worn phrase. The four-bedroom home on the lovely lane offers sanctuary to women in transition--between ordinary lives and lawless avenues, between richness and fullness or running on empty.

Chloe, 34, said she’s “been clean” for months. She describes the fortnight at New Entra Casa as two of the best weeks in her life. Her new beginning consists of involvement in two 12-step programs, Narcotics Anonymous and Overeaters Anonymous, and in working as a respiratory therapist in a local hospital.

She Can Feel New Beginning

She said she can feel the new beginning, which marks a radical departure from her life a year ago.

Before entering New Entra Casa--where Chloe, like the other women, assists in the cooking and housekeeping--she was addicted to crystal methamphetamine, a stimulant with harsh side effects and a power for polluting the mind.

“I get up every morning at 4 just to get to work by 6,” she said proudly. “I used to sleep till noon and then spend all day getting dressed. You’re so incredibly paranoid doing drugs, the things you worry about don’t have any bearing on reality. You’re just an animal.”

Chloe could still be sentenced to prison, which leaves her as terrified as a teen-ager heading off to the jungles of Vietnam.

“I don’t think I’m a criminal,” she said tearfully. “I got really screwed up four years ago and just stayed like that. Seven years in prison (her maximum sentence) would be real devastating. I didn’t victimize anybody but myself. I am a contributing member of society--now. So why can’t I remain one? I work hard. I take care of a lot of sick people (in her work at the hospital). There must be better ways of getting punished.”

Hazel Dawson, 46, thinks there are--under her roof. Dawson, director of New Entra Casa, is a large, matronly woman with a bellowing laugh and a loving attitude about “my gals.” Dawson intends to go to court to plead Chloe’s case. She believes New Entra Casa can help in a way that prisons never could.

Dawson, a worker in the social services since 1981, when she received a master’s degree in counseling from San Diego State University, claims an 80% success rate for New Entra Casa, and a less-than-20% rate of recidivism.

She said that, because of funding cuts and the grim attrition affecting such agencies, New Entra Casa is the last of such homes left in California. Seven other low-security--or no -security--residential centers for female ex-offenders have closed, which she finds abysmal.

The Annual Funding Nightmare

Dawson said funding is an annual nightmare. She oversaw a bake sale Saturday that raised $250--barely enough to buy dishwashing detergent, let alone feed six women for a year. New Entra Casa gets $115,000 a year from the county and the rest from private donations. The county share is evaluated annually, and private monies are never a given. How many bake sales can you have?

Dawson blames the antipathy for such programs on the Reagan Administration and said a change “of some kind, any kind” is welcome. She doesn’t know if Michael Dukakis is the answer but said he “couldn’t be worse than Reagan.”

New Entra Casa was started 18 years ago and, until July 1, spent a fruitful decade in a house on Front Street near downtown. That home had to be vacated. The existing house was purchased largely from a $120,000 gift that Dawson managed to match through fund raising. The property itself cost $244,000. Dawson and the United Methodist Church, founder of the program, hope New Entra Casa can weave its new beginning from this base.

Dawson’s work is full of crazy ups and downs.

Watching Transformation

“It’s gratifying to see women so despondent and depressed come alive again,” Dawson said. “We see gals just mired in hopelessness. We help them get their families back. We help them look people in the eye again. They win back their self-esteem. They spin out little success stories like a beautiful tapestry.

“The hard part is not having enough programs like this to go around. When you consider the magnanimity of the problem, that’s horrific.”

Florence Johnson, 38, is an ally of Dawson’s, a seven-year veteran in counseling endeavors, who calls her biggest job “just listening.” She said the common bond of the women of New Entra Casa, regardless of the crime, is fear.

Fear with a capital F.

“A lot of these women have either just gotten out of jail or have been out a while,” she said. “Many can’t function, and they’re in danger of falling into the same old traps again. We help them pull back together, which is satisfying work.”

She said that, when most of the women come to New Entra Casa, it’s not inaccurate to say they reflect the title of a successful local musical. They sometimes feel like six women with brain death. But that changes, Johnson said:

“My favorite story is one involving a mother who was hooked on coke. The woman’s children were with her mother when we took her in. We were her friend. We saw her come off drugs, clean herself up, get her own apartment with her kids and put her life back together. She even went back to get her diploma. That was a great feeling--for everybody.”

Still, Johnson loses sleep over the offspring of such women.

“People should ask themselves, ‘If these women are here, where are the kids, and what shape are they in?’ A lot of women tumble into the drug world and need all the love they can get--not retribution. This is a haven they can turn to for help.”

Barbara Economides, 38, was one of those who tumbled into the drug world. She’s been at New Entra Casa two weeks; before that, she did a four-month tour at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center, where her husband remains. He faces a possible prison sentence.

Economides said lawmen came into the family home and uncovered a “large explosive device,” which led to her and her husband being arrested. She termed the device “payment on a drug deal,” while insisting that she and her husband “hadn’t done drugs for years” before being arrested. Economides was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with her husband’s case.

And now her life is in limbo. Her two children are in a foster home, and seldom a minute passes when she isn’t thinking about her husband, whom she says she loves and has for the 15 years of a “real good relationship.” If she blames anything, she blames drugs.

“I hate them,” she said.

Economides had just returned from a hard day at a construction project. She picked up a broom and started sweeping the back-yard sidewalk. Later, she would help with the cooking.

Hard work never bothered her, she said. She likes the pace, the sense of security and comfort of New Entra Casa. Unlike prison, she sees this as a sanctuary of safe reflection.

“I can see my children for short visits now,” she said with a wan, listless look. “I guess I’m doing OK. I miss my husband. . . . I just wish the judge would give him the same kind of chance he gave me. I know he did wrong. We both did. But we can straighten our lives out.

“It’s easier doin’ it at a place like this than it is on the end of a prison sentence. Can you imagine a hell worse than that?”