On a Thursday night in March, several legislators and friends threw a party at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center. Like many events at the JACC, there was great live music, food and drink, and a worthy cause. This fundraiser for Juneau’s Haven House was well attended, raised significant funds, and highlighted the need to persevere to accomplish goals to benefit the community, even in the face of questions or criticism. This requires helping people see good results that await them, and all of us, in the future.
Many community groups use the JACC for fundraisers, but some functions stand out. Haven House is an amazing, relatively new organization, one that overcame major obstacles to provide a key service: supporting women leaving incarceration in hopes of their successful reintegration as functioning, productive members of society.
Back when I was practicing as a criminal defense attorney, helping clients focus on the reality of post-incarceration life was difficult. Whether trying a case or considering a guilty plea with an agreed-upon sentence, the scary potential of going to prison and then having to follow that with re-entry into civil life was there.
Studies have shown that lack of stable housing is among the hardest obstacles to successful re-entry. Housing leads to employment opportunities, which help reknit the fabric of daily being that can allow a convicted person to lead a normal, productive life. Stable housing can also provide those struggling with addiction boundaries that make all the difference as they try to live in a world where access to intoxicants is not controlled as it is in custody.
Haven House didn’t come into existence easily. Those who made it happen had to defend against people already living in the part of town where it now stands. Haven House’s advocates argued forcefully and convincingly that the cost-benefit analysis stood firmly in favor of allowing the project. The potential cost was posited as criminal acts by the residents, harm to the surrounding neighborhood, and the ultimate failure to punish those convicted of serious crimes. The benefits were providing a real second chance to people the rest of whose lives could go down one of two starkly different paths: recidivism, reoffending, and a cycle of failure, or a new start, with no new offenses, and a way to success. The latter was chosen and now appears to be working well.
Some may say that Haven House is only succeeding because its clients are women, that it couldn’t work for larger segments of the correctional population. Whether data exist to prove this negative assertion, it is possible that the small size and up-close nature of the Haven House model offers the key to its success. Manageable groups of people committed to the shared goal of succeeding in life after being incarcerated learn to care about and support each other, in many ways like a family that people in prison may not have.
Haven House spent many years fighting the neighborhood association that sought to deny its existence. The Planning Commission’s issuance of a conditional use permit was appealed to the City and Borough of Juneau Assembly, throwing the project into legal limbo. Efforts to raise funds to make the project happen were hampered by the litigation. A corner was turned when CBJ codified the definition of transitional housing in municipal code, nullifying the argument that this was a halfway house, but the opponents continued to make general arguments about how it would be bad. These arguments failed to convince the Superior Court, which ruled in favor of Haven House and CBJ, allowing Haven House to open.
Denying the viability of something is one means by which opponents of an idea can seek to prevent it from happening. Naysaying is often a predictably self-fulfilling prophecy. But unless the assertions of impossibility are fact-based, supporters can always overcome the negative arguments.
Confidence, optimism and unwavering devotion to the cause helped bring Haven House into existence, and today it is providing a unique and vital service, which benefits not only its clients, but the whole community. Other good plans in the works for Juneau can also follow this lead and make life in Juneau better for all.
• Benjamin Brown is a lifelong Alaskan and an attorney who lives in Juneau. He does Marketing and Development for the Juneau Arts & Humanities Council and serves as Chairman of the Alaska State Council on the Arts.
