With drugs and jail behind him, former inmate looks to future
Re-entry program helped offender tackle challenges of his past when he ‘didn’t have faith in himself’
Joseph Dowell walked on stage to address the crowd.
A few women watched him from tables decked with orange and blue balloons inside the Kashmere Multi-Service Center.
They were used to seeing Dowell in an orange jumpsuit.
Today, he was wearing a black suit with a red tie.
He was the speaker at a graduation ceremony to honor those who had finished a re-entry program sponsored by the Houston Health Department. But he first thanked the women from the Freedom Project, another re-entry program for those serving sentences at the Harris County Jail.
Dowell asked the women to stand, as those around them applauded. They smiled at Dowell, who they knew had come a long way.
“These ladies had faith in me, when I didn’t have faith in myself,” he said.
Eight months out of jail and off drugs, Dowell is trying to adjust to life without the Freedom Project. It hasn’t been easy. He struggled to find a job, his
truck was damaged in a car accident and worst of all, he lost his wife, Yolanda, who died unexpectedly in January.
“She gave me a reason to live,” Dowell said.
The Freedom Project helped Dowell finally come to terms with his past: parents who suffered from addiction, abuse in Child Protective Services custody and not being there when his 6-year-old son, Jamal, was killed in a drive-by shooting.
Then the re-entry program sponsored by the city’s health department helped him deal with the present — and his future.
“It’s not going to be easy,” Dowell said of the journey ahead.
The statistics bear that out: More than 40 percent of offenders are re-arrested within five years of being released, according to data from 2005 to 2010 from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
When Dowell first met his wife, Yolanda was a cheerleader at Worthing High School. Their schools were playing each other.
Dowell, a student at Jones High School, ventured to the opposing side during a football game, and Yolanda caught his eye.
Their relationship endured years of highs and lows, as Yolanda watched him cycle in and out of the Harris County Jail.
But Dowell, now 48, was released from jail this past October after a judge granted him five years probation for drug possession. He could’ve spent the rest of his life in prison.
Instead, he was finally at home with his wife. Dowell wanted to start over. He wanted to show her that he had changed.
But their happiness was short-lived.
In January, he arrived to pick up his wife from her job as a security guard and learned that she had collapsed at work.
He sped to Memorial Hermann, where she died from a brain aneurysm.
His wife had suffered back-to-back aneurysms nine years ago, but he said she hadn’t faced similar problems since.
When it happened the first time, Dowell told her to stop working. But then, he went to jail, and she took on a job to provide financially for the family.
“To lose her so soon after I get home was like getting the wind knocked out of you,” Dowell said. And he blamed himself. He even thought about using drugs. BBB
When Dowell was first arrested nearly 25 years ago for possessing and dealing cocaine, he remembers not caring much. Most of his friends had gone to jail. It was almost expected, he said.
But during a stretch in prison, after his son was killed, the regret and bitterness began to build.
Dowell used to rely mainly on marijuana to get him through his pain.
After Yolanda’s death, he decided to do things differently.
He reached out to Gwen Bossett, a program leader in the Freedom Project.
She encouraged him to call his therapist and to connect with others. She knew he might spiral.
“You don’t know what will hit you,” she told him.
Over the weeks that followed, Bossett said she talked with Dowell every day, sometimes for hours, and worked with him through his grief. She remembers one day Dowell called her crying, and she pulled her car over, so she could devote her full attention.
Dowell said he’s used his faith to get him through the dark moments.
“You can’t question God and his motives,” he said. “You can’t wonder why this happened or that happened.”
Yolanda Murdock-Wiltz has watched Dowell transform. She first met the guy she describes as a “jokester” when he was on parole several years ago. Now, she serves as one of his counselors for his new re-entry program.
It meets four days a week for a few hours, and participants can receive life skills courses, job training, counseling, anger management and other services.
Dowell completed the program in four weeks.
“He’s in a whole different mindset, because he can actually go back and remember some of the learning experiences that he’s had,” said Murdock-Wiltz. “Once he does it correctly and doesn’t allow the old issues (to resurface), like anger, anxiety, panic, and settles down, the ending result is much better.”
He also has a new job working for the city’s Public Works Department, which he got through a referral from the re-entry program.
Bossett has noticed his progress, too. She sees his willingness to help others and desire to stay clean.
Dowell sent her a text recently that simply said, “Thank you for believing in me.”
Despite his progress, Dowell said during his speech at graduation that he still has a long way to go.
“It’s a process,” he said. “There’s going to be bumps in the road.”
He finished by telling his fellow graduates, “You and I got a lot of work to do.” brooke.lewis@chron.com twitter.com/brookelewisa