Thompson was on parole for a string of five aggravated robberies — “That’s how I supported my drug habit,” he said — and he went to his parole officer.
“I told him I was pretty much killing myself,” he said. “I pretty much surrendered myself to him and asked him if he could help.”
Thompson was referred to the Southwestern Ohio Serenity Hall, a halfway house on Second Street in Hamilton.
He said that when he walked in, “This feeling came over me like I was at home. Prior to that, I was homeless. I didn’t have one.”
Six months later, he was clean. Five years later, he still is, and has started an Alcoholics Anonymous group next door to the SOS Hall. He lives in Cincinnati now, but visits the hall almost every week.
“When I heard that it’s (shutting down), I really don’t know how to respond to that, except in tears,” he said. “I’ve never had a thought of this place not being here.”
The state is ending funding to the SOS Hall on June 30. Agency Director Marae Martin said this will force them to shut down and lay off their 20 workers. It’s the only such program in Butler County.
State officials say this is due to a study that found the SOS Hall and several other programs actually increase recidivism — making people more likely to be repeat offenders — compared to doing nothing at all.
Martin said the research is outdated. Thompson said it’s just plain wrong.
Rehab center loses funding
State officials say a local halfway house is being unfunded by the state after a study found it does more harm than good in keeping people out of prison.
The Southwestern Ohio Serenity Hall on South Second Street in Hamilton will lose $754,156 in state funding on June 30, according to agency and state officials.
That is nearly all of its operating budget, according to agency director Marae Martin.
“I think it’s a great loss to the community,” she said.
The study, conducted by the University of Cincinnati, isn’t due for release until March 18. But Martin said she has seen the portion dealing with her agency, and it’s based on data from 2006.
She said the agency has made numerous changes since 2006, responding to criticism from the state, and hasn’t failed an audit.
“It just seems to me you’d want to look at more recent data before you close down an operation that has been here for 41 years,” she said.
Once the agency is closed, she said the closest halfway house will be the Talbert House, Turtle Creek Center in Lebanon.
The study found the SOS Hall, the Nova House in Dayton and a halfway house in Mansfield — as well as six community-based correctional facilities — actually increased recidivism in participants, according to Julie Walburn, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.
In other words, people who took part in these programs were more likely to be repeat offenders than someone with no treatment at all, she said.
“It would be better to do nothing with these offenders than put them in a program that makes them worse,” Walburn said.
Walburn said funding for the halfway houses will end at the end of June, while the correctional facilities — none of which are in Butler County — will be given several months to turn around.
“If they don’t turn their programs around, we’ll have legal steps we’ll have to take to address that,” she said.
The state won’t decrease the number of beds available overall. Instead, the money will be directed at existing programs where “data demonstrates decreased recidivism instead of making offenders worse in the long run, which is what the study said these programs were doing.”
The purpose of these programs is to divert convicted offenders from prison by addressing the underlying psychological or addictive problems that led to their crimes.
Walburn said the specific numbers on recidivism won’t be available until the study is released next week.
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