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n 2009, the county closed down the jail and leased the building to a nonprofit group called The Way Back House, which had operated a halfway house in Dallas for decades. Way Back moved its operations to the old Cabana building, but the move was short-lived. In 2011, as the private corrections industry continued to expand nationwide, an Oklahoma-based for-profit company called Avalon Corrections came on the scene and took over the struggling halfway house.
Called the Dallas Transitional Center, the old hotel is the county's only re-entry center subsidized by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. It's a place for broke, homeless parolees fresh out of prison who have no place else to go. The state has contracts with seven re-entry centers to provide what the state describes as subsidized housing, but what residents say is more like a minimum-security jail. They're kept there not by armed guards but the threat of getting a parole violation.
The 200-plus people there at any given time are ordered to stay until they develop something called a home plan — a place to live that they can afford and that meets their parole restrictions. For people convicted of violent crimes, home plans get much more complicated. Violent felons in prison for decades are already broke, their family members may be gone, and they're not welcomed by most landlords or employers. Local ordinances often keep sex offenders from living near parks or schools.
The rules that limit where parolees can live don't always make sense. "I can't go to my sister's because her husband is on parole," said Jeffrey Davis, a convicted robber and rapist who, after prison, lived for six months at the Dallas Transitional Center. Finally, the authorities approved his home plan — he was sent to live with his sister and her paroled husband, where he wanted to go all along.
Former Texas inmates with nothing left in the state where they committed their crimes can apply to leave the state under an interstate compact, but parolees say their papers aren't always approved, for reasons they don't understand. "I'm like, boom, they just dropped me in Dallas. Like why the fuck did you drop me off in Dallas?" says Anthony Reed, a Cabana resident. He's from Las Vegas but was pulled over in Tyler 14 months ago and arrested after drugs were found in his car. He wanted to be paroled back home to Vegas. "I put in my parole plan where I wanted to go and it was approved and everything, and they be like, 'Your paperwork, it's lost,' so, boom."
On a March afternoon, in the courtyard outside the Dallas Transitional Center, middle-aged men stand around and smoke cigarettes. Some sit shaded under cabanas and stare off into space, looking at nothing. On the sidewalk bordering Stemmons Freeway, two convicts who spent over half their lives in prison for robbery, rape and murder argue over how to sneak in an ancient portable television. There's no way they can get it past security, they decide.
Some of the parolees are free to leave for day trips once their schedules are approved. They complain that the rigid time constraints can make it difficult to find a job or get new housing quickly. Inmates aren't supposed to have cameras inside, but photographs taken with forbidden smart phones show the bathroom walls covered in black mold. Several current and former residents are convinced that the mold affected their breathing and made them feel sick. The residents are responsible for cleaning the bathrooms, but the mold never goes away, no matter what they use. "The mold here, it's so bad," one man says. Like most parolees the Observer spoke to, he didn't want to be identified. (Avalon's corporate Vice President Patrick Sullivan denied our requests to tour the facility and didn't respond to follow-up interview requests.)
The state orders offenders released to a halfway house to pay the facility 25 percent of any income they receive, including Social Security payments. The offenders bristle at the notion that the halfway house would get a cut of their government checks after already receiving money from the government to house them. "It seem like everybody wants to make money off the ex-offender, no matter what their offense was," says a resident, who despite complaining about the halfway house, says he has been there three years.
....Forget about being prepared for re-entry to the outside world; the halfway house and the parole program is another convenient way to make money off of ex-cons. Avalon Corrections currently receives $38 per resident, per day from the TDCJ, state figures show. The corporation has requested more money per resident, but the TDCJ denied the request last year.
Former Texas Prison Inmates Find a Temporary Home at Dallas old Cabana Hot Dallas Observer
That's a lengthy read and there is much more information than I could get away with pulling.
Called the Dallas Transitional Center, the old hotel is the county's only re-entry center subsidized by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. It's a place for broke, homeless parolees fresh out of prison who have no place else to go. The state has contracts with seven re-entry centers to provide what the state describes as subsidized housing, but what residents say is more like a minimum-security jail. They're kept there not by armed guards but the threat of getting a parole violation.
The 200-plus people there at any given time are ordered to stay until they develop something called a home plan — a place to live that they can afford and that meets their parole restrictions. For people convicted of violent crimes, home plans get much more complicated. Violent felons in prison for decades are already broke, their family members may be gone, and they're not welcomed by most landlords or employers. Local ordinances often keep sex offenders from living near parks or schools.
The rules that limit where parolees can live don't always make sense. "I can't go to my sister's because her husband is on parole," said Jeffrey Davis, a convicted robber and rapist who, after prison, lived for six months at the Dallas Transitional Center. Finally, the authorities approved his home plan — he was sent to live with his sister and her paroled husband, where he wanted to go all along.
Former Texas inmates with nothing left in the state where they committed their crimes can apply to leave the state under an interstate compact, but parolees say their papers aren't always approved, for reasons they don't understand. "I'm like, boom, they just dropped me in Dallas. Like why the fuck did you drop me off in Dallas?" says Anthony Reed, a Cabana resident. He's from Las Vegas but was pulled over in Tyler 14 months ago and arrested after drugs were found in his car. He wanted to be paroled back home to Vegas. "I put in my parole plan where I wanted to go and it was approved and everything, and they be like, 'Your paperwork, it's lost,' so, boom."
On a March afternoon, in the courtyard outside the Dallas Transitional Center, middle-aged men stand around and smoke cigarettes. Some sit shaded under cabanas and stare off into space, looking at nothing. On the sidewalk bordering Stemmons Freeway, two convicts who spent over half their lives in prison for robbery, rape and murder argue over how to sneak in an ancient portable television. There's no way they can get it past security, they decide.
Some of the parolees are free to leave for day trips once their schedules are approved. They complain that the rigid time constraints can make it difficult to find a job or get new housing quickly. Inmates aren't supposed to have cameras inside, but photographs taken with forbidden smart phones show the bathroom walls covered in black mold. Several current and former residents are convinced that the mold affected their breathing and made them feel sick. The residents are responsible for cleaning the bathrooms, but the mold never goes away, no matter what they use. "The mold here, it's so bad," one man says. Like most parolees the Observer spoke to, he didn't want to be identified. (Avalon's corporate Vice President Patrick Sullivan denied our requests to tour the facility and didn't respond to follow-up interview requests.)
The state orders offenders released to a halfway house to pay the facility 25 percent of any income they receive, including Social Security payments. The offenders bristle at the notion that the halfway house would get a cut of their government checks after already receiving money from the government to house them. "It seem like everybody wants to make money off the ex-offender, no matter what their offense was," says a resident, who despite complaining about the halfway house, says he has been there three years.
....Forget about being prepared for re-entry to the outside world; the halfway house and the parole program is another convenient way to make money off of ex-cons. Avalon Corrections currently receives $38 per resident, per day from the TDCJ, state figures show. The corporation has requested more money per resident, but the TDCJ denied the request last year.
Former Texas Prison Inmates Find a Temporary Home at Dallas old Cabana Hot Dallas Observer
That's a lengthy read and there is much more information than I could get away with pulling.
