Navigating Halfway House

My post contentHi everyone, I hope you're doing well and if you're reading this that might mean that your loved one is about to go to the halfway house, which is fantastic. Even though the halfway house might be a pain in the "you know what," it's better than being behind that fence. It's one step closer to being back at home with your loved one and you know when they get there that it's really close to being over, at least as far as the BOP is concerned.

You have every right to be excited and feel good and this article is intended to help you stay excited and feeling good without letting the HWH stuff get to you...because it will if you let it.

In the midst of all of the excitement, I think its important that you keep some things in mind. These things aren't meant to dampen your enthusiasm, but rather to help you maintain those good feelings and know what to expect a little bit so that you're not caught off guard.

The first and BIGGEST of them to keep in mind is that your loved one is so much better off in a halfway house than behind a fence, hundreds of miles away. They'll have access to the internet, good food and so much more.The people I encountered there had left the prison mentality behind and so everyone got along and tried to help each other. It was a much more positive environment. So no matter what happens to make you mad while your loved one is there, don't forget that.

There are going to be things that make you mad too, I promise. They are another level of the BOP bureaucracy and they operate as such. They often have stupid, inconsequential rules that are there just so if they want to write you up, they can. I don't really think they did this by design, but it has become (if you look at it the right way) a test for how your loved one is going to do in the real world. So just know in advance that you're going to deal with a fair amount of stupidity and don't let it throw you.

What I'm going to tell you now is based on MY experience at the halfway house I went to. I would imagine they're mostly the same, but I can't swear to what it will be like at yours. With Covid-19 here we were locked down completely. In two months, I left once and that was to get tested. Visitation was suspended indefinitely and very few were going to work. Those who were working had been there for awhile and had established, verified jobs before the lock down happened.

Cell Phones - We were allowed to have cell phones so long as they didn't have a camera or web access. I know this is ridiculous but that's what they say. It took me a day or two to figure out that this wasn't one of the rules that was really enforced. Pretty much everyone had smart phones. I'm not telling you to go get a smart phone, only that where I was, it wasn't enforced very sternly. I will say that I had mine taken until I left the halfway house because "the wrong person" saw me with it. So it's one of those kind of things. Your loved one probably isn't going to get in trouble for it, but it may get taken. I wouldn't recommend sending them there with a new iPhone for example.

Visits - The way we were set up, we weren't allowed to have visitors, but if you go to drop off some hygiene items or clothes or food, we were usually allowed to hang out in the parking lot for a little while, until the staff came out and barked at us to wrap it up. Again, this is my experience with the one I was at. My parents came once or twice a week and we always got to hang out for a little bit (40 minutes or so). Food, Clothes and Hygiene - We were allowed to have all of this brought to us at the HWH I was at. We weren't supposed to have food brought to us, but I never saw anyone get turned away for bringing in food. Clothes and hygiene you can bring to your LO.

Phones and Home Confinement - There is a process that have to follow. Your LO will be assigned a Case Manager when they get there and this is the person who makes the determination about whether your LO is cleared for home confinement. In most of these situations the case manager wants to get them out to HC, but has guidelines they have to follow.

You must have a land line. Yes the old phones that used to hang on the wall. This is one of those retarded policies that serves no real purpose and hasn't been updated simply because nobody wants to take the time to write a new policy. There are several ways this can go and your LO's Case Manager will make the call. It has to be a land line that can't be relocated. It can't have any features because they're afraid your LO will have the number forwarded and they can run around and do what they like.