A Step Up : STAIRS Program Helps Parolees Become Self-Sufficient

Wade Mixon, 39, graduated in November without a degree.

He earned more important things: Sobriety. Work experience. A $4,000 savings account.

Mixon graduated from STAIRS, a voluntary state Department of Corrections residential program that helps recently released parolees become self-sufficient.

The parolees, who live in the Weingart Center, a downtown relief and referral agency for the homeless, are expected to adhere to their parole terms and the program’s rigorous rules.

They attend a slew of meetings from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., from sessions on overcoming homelessness and anger management to ones on life skills and job hunting. They’re also required to put in at least 10 hours a week in the Weingart Center’s literacy/computer lab and to pass random drug tests.

By the time he was 31, Mixon, a North Carolina native, was an alcoholic who had dropped out of college and been dishonorably discharged from the Army. For the next seven years, between stays in jails, he lived on the streets of San Francisco, then Los Angeles.

He slept in a cardboard box in MacArthur Park. He smoked crack, sold cans and bottles and, when he needed extra cash, stole castoff supplies from trash bins behind dental offices, constructing and selling crack pipes for a dollar apiece.

He eventually landed in state prison for cocaine possession. When he was released in November 1995, his parole agent gave him an option: spend three years on normal parole, or 13 months if he went through STAIRS.

“In [San Quentin] I saw how lifers had no hope or families to support them. They became negative, and I didn’t want that,” he said.

Mixon said the STAIRS regimen was difficult at first.

“I felt really bad about myself, hating myself the first three months. But I saw how other people were making it, and I thought, if they can do it, I can too. And I began believing in myself for the first time,” he said.

The Department of Corrections and the Weingart Center started STAIRS in 1988, targeting parolees like Mixon--people with little or no family support or job histories who were likely to end up homeless. The program accepts any volunteer parolee, except one convicted of arson, predatory sex offenses or assaults on peace officers.

It expanded in 1993 to include a more structured agenda for those with a history of drug abuse. About 150 parolees are now enrolled. Depending on their backgrounds, they live there from three to 12 months, costing the state an average of $11,000 each.

More than half of those who enroll in STAIRS wash out.

“They’re not going to benefit from the comprehensive structure if they don’t want to do it,” said program supervisor Daniel Ballin. “If they come in and aren’t open to assistance or aren’t motivated to participate, we can’t help them.”

Mixon, who had rarely held a job, was required to consult with a job referral center as part of his parole, and landed a job as a laborer for a fence company.

“I was learning the responsibility of going to work, and I knew it was a part of recovery,” he said. “When I saw other people struggling--getting up and going to work--I started feeling like a part of society.”

Ballin acknowledged the job search is a hurdle for many paroles.

“They have a prison record, no job experience, no family, friends or network to find work,” he said. “Many don’t even have a realistic idea of what work is.”

The Department of Rehabilitation, one of many state agencies that works with the Weingart Center, helps clients get a first job, providing everything from counseling and guidance to vocational training, education, work clothes and bus tokens.

When clients start earning paychecks, they join the “Moneymakers’ Club,” a bank account through the Weingart Center that encourages saving. Part of the STAIRS graduation requirement is saving a minimum of $1,000 so that the parolee can at least put a deposit on an apartment and phone.

During their stay, parolees also work on community service projects, such as planting trees at a school or removing trash from nature preserves. They served food at the Fred Jordan Mission on Thanksgiving and recently helped with gardening at Brockton Elementary School in Culver City.

Two events in November fell through when Judy Beauchamp, program assistant, reminded the agencies who would show up.

“My biggest problem is getting people to overcome the stereotype of who a parolee is,” she said. “These guys already have so many marks against them. If you get the door slammed in your face enough times, you eventually give up.”

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Many do. Between January and June, almost a third of those enrolled in STAIRS left without notice. Others are discharged for using drugs or for not complying with the program’s rules. A total of 84 graduated in June, but more than double who’d started with them did not.

David Grunwald, the Weingart Center’s associate director of programs and services, said that the screening process is minimal and that numerous applicants leave within the first week, unable to tolerate the structure.

“One out of every five parolees succeeding may sound low, but we’ve made a dramatic difference in that person’s life,” he said. “Add that up, year after year, and those are hundreds of people who succeed.”

Mixon went home to North Carolina for Christmas to see his family for the first time in 13 years. Before he left, he thought about the differences between himself and the parolees who had quit STAIRS.

It’s a matter of willingness, he said, the same attitude that’s preparing him for the next steps in his life: finishing his bachelor’s degree in political science and training to become a drug and alcohol counselor.

“I’m scared because I’m leaving a comfortable environment and moving into the unknown,” he said. “But I am certain that wherever I’m going will be better, because I can make that choice.”