This story is graciously shared by a resident at Benevolence Farm. The written format was developed in partnership with Hidden Voices.
Do people understand how easy it is to get violated? How easy it is for them to take our freedom, just snatch us up and send us back? Both times I’ve been sent back to prison for violating parole, when I’d served the time, they just released me back out with nowhere to go again.
I was in a bad relationship. The man put me out in the middle of the night by the hair of the head, and I didn’t have a home or a place to go to. Literally every day, I was in the probation office, every day in front of the probation officer’s face, but I still got violated for not having a home and residence. Even though I was at their office, and they knew where I was, and I was trying to be in compliance, it didn’t matter. At the end of the day, we might be out of prison, but we’re still looked at as offenders. In their eyes, we’re still the ones who will lie and manipulate. But that’s not the case. We’re begging for help. We want help. We need help. I was there asking and pleading for help — I was asking for a program, I was asking for a home, I was crying in their offices, but to be honest, sometimes not even the probation officers know how to help.
The last time I went to a mental health hospital, I was in there for three and a half weeks and I got violated again for not having a residence, not giving them my address. When I was in front of the judge, I was showing him the paperwork where I was in the mental health hospital, on the phone with my probation officer, trying to get help, begging for help, begging for somebody to help give me stability while was homeless.
There’s not enough places out there for women to go into. There’s nowhere to give them the resources that they need. I was trying to make it out there, but I could not get the help in reentering.
