People used to come up to me in my addiction and said, Neil, you're a smart guy. If you would, do you know, or why don't you? Or how come you, I mean, it's like really? Who asked you? Why are you minding my business? You don't haven't earned the right to tell me how I'm gonna get well, and yet sometimes there's this cookie cutter approach. You know, you walk in the door and say, I'm a cocaine addict. Well then you just have to do these things in this order and you'll be fine. That's a load of garbage. It's not true. Each of us is different. My self-esteem challenges, the things that scare me, the things that make it hard for me are not the same for anybody else.
Phil Shuler:HellO, and welcome to Renew, Restore, Rejoice, the Safe House Ministries podcast, where we share stories of the power of God to change lives through Safe House Ministries. Safe House Ministries is based out of Columbus, Georgia, and we are a ministry that exists to love and serve people who have been affected by addiction, homelessness, and incarceration. I'm your host, Phil Shuler, the Director of Development for Safe House Ministries here in Columbus, Georgia. Safe House serves over 1, 100 people each month as they transition back into our community. Safe House provides an abundance of services including 213 beds for homeless individuals and families, case management for obtaining job skills and long term employment. Over 300 hot meals every day, free clothing, and so much more. One of the most incredible services that Safe House provides is our free 9 12 month intensive outpatient substance abuse program, which is state licensed, CARF accredited, and has no wait list. Almost 100 percent of individuals staying in our shelters who follow our three phase program become fully employed within a few months. And 68 percent of individuals who stay at least one night with us End up finding work and moving into their own home. Thank you for being with us today and listening to our podcast. We hope you enjoy this week's episode.
Neil Richardson:today we have a special guest who is the executive director and the founder of Safe House Ministries, Neil Richardson. Neil, thank you for being with us today. Good morning. So, you have so many stories that you can tell and, I'd like to start out, just share with us a little bit about Your background and some of the struggles that you faced and went through and, and how things turned around for you. So I think we'll start with June the fourth of 2007. I called my ex-wife and told her I thought I was dying and asked her if she'd get me to the hospital and she said, sure. She, we literally lived a couple of miles apart. I have an ex-wife because I was a cocaine addict for about 30 years, and she put up with about as much as she possibly could put up with. We were still good friends and parents and that was something that we, God blessed us with the ability to do that in the midst of all that insanity. So I got to her house and it was kind of hilarious. She didn't believe me. She thought I'd probably relapse and had lost whatever clean time I had created and was real nervous. she just sat down and started doing her makeup. And I just sat, you know, on the couch and kind of waited for the ride. Um, and then you remember Lassie, that was hilarious for me. Our dog Lucky came running up, sniffed me, and I petted the dog. And then the dog started going and barking at Kathy. That was my ex. And she just said, hush, hush. So then the dog went and woke up one of my kids. And they came in to try to figure out, you know, what are you doing here? What's going on? And then Billy went to Kathy and said, something ain't right here. Said the dog's freaking out. I don't think he looks so good. She said, I think he's relapsed. And he goes, I don't think that's the case. And so she came in and she said, are you serious? And I went, yeah, I don't know what's going on, but I don't think I'm gonna live. So she get in the car. We went to South Miami Hospital. I'm from Miami. And I knew that they had a shorter ER weight line, so we went to South Miami Hospital and we got there and I collapsed in the parking lot. I got up and got inside and that's the last thing I remember was speaking to a security guard. That was June 4th. On July the 28th, I came out of the coma in a hospital room trying to figure out what the heck was going on around here. And there was a good friend of mine sitting in the room and apparently people had been coming to visit waiting to see if I'd pop out of the coma. So, I found out the following. I had necrotizing fasciitis, nicknamed the Flesh Eating Disease. It's got a 5% survival rate. Guess which group I'm in? It started right here. Everything I'm telling you now is the stuff I. My, uh, family had been praying and asking people to pray. the doctors had told them on day one when I got there that it started here. All the vitals are right there. This isn't gonna be one of the five percenters. Y'all need to take care of business, but as only God can do, you ran it all the way down here into the leg, across the abdomen, down in the other leg. They did surgery on the, on the fourth or fifth, and again on the seventh. And finally got it all. God had made sure it didn't touch anything. And I was told that when I arrived at the hospital, my kidneys had already shut down. My lungs were shutting down, my liver was shutting down, and I wouldn't have lived another three hours. the right doc was there. He knew what it was immediately. Everything was perfect as only God can do. So here's this cocaine addict who's now trying to rehab a body that's kind of been destroyed. And Rob Dahl, dear friend, used to own the Nissan dealership in Columbus, called up and said, why don't you move up here? Sell cars. Really? Heck no. I don't want to sell cars. And he said, if you can find a better job, do do it. But I know that physically you can't do five days worth of work. And if you can come in one day a week, two days a week, I'll never fire you. As long as you work when you can work. Nobody else made that offer. So here I am in Columbus. I found out you had to buy long pants and sweaters to live up here. It's not Miami. and that's, that's how it all started. I worked there for about a year and, during that year, uh, a little quick aside, I had been both a volunteer and a staff chaplain in the jails in Miami, Florida. I have a recovery story. It's a good testimony to share with people who get hopeless. I mean, drugs rip everything out of your life. They take any hope, they take any future, they take any family, any friends, any purpose. It just rips it right out of your system. And so here I am, a recovering person who can't work. I got about 250 bucks in my pocket and a couple of suitcases. I move up to Columbus, GA. I get a place to live. I got a job that I wanna do the best I can at, and I started volunteering in the jail as a volunteer chaplain on Sundays. And at the time there were six men and two women that showed up and there are 28 public dormitories. So the ministry in the Muscogee County jail was horrible. God just kept burdening me and burdening me that there needs to be ministry in this building. So I talked to my pastor. He got me with some other pastors and most of the, the downtown and the near downtown churches, and everybody said, we're gonna do this thing. We met with the sheriff and he said, heck yeah, but you know, the government ain't got no money. And so, you know, we just said, listen, we'll raise the money. And so we birthed what was then the Chattahoochee Valley Jail Ministry in order to make sure that I could make rent and we could actually start this ministry. And poof. October the fifth of 2009, I walked into the Muskogee County Jail as a full-time chaplain. Wow. Mm-hmm. Wow. He's an amazing God. Yes, he is. So, The Lord really turned your life around and then put it in your heart that you wanted to be his servant to turn the lives of others around. So tell us, uh, from the time in jail, what led you to want to create what we now know as Safe House Ministries? So this was kind of funny, I gotta tell you this little aside. Patched relationships with my sons because I'm no longer an addict. I got my oldest son to come up here and do a little contract for, Rob Dahl to help kind of secure his computer systems a little bit. So Billy came up here and we kinda lived near each other, same apartment building for about six months and. I'm volunteering in the jail. And he told his mom one night, he said, you know that Dad goes in the jail. She goes, do not bail him out. And he said, no, mom. He's, he's in the jail. He works. No, do not bail him out. He has gone off the deep end again. I think that's hilarious. And so Billy could not convince her. He even said he's got these giant keys that only opened jailed doors, and she said he stole them. And so I, I mean, I, I can't blame her. I mean, I did that to her. But you know, we, we got green lit. You know, the sheriff and the warden both wanted to try new things to the point that we created a jail ministry that doesn't exist in the United States. You know, a fatherhood dorm teaching young men that last night didn't make you a dad, last night didn't make you a father. That a father is a partner with a mother and a father who raises and demonstrates life to his children. And we discovered that half of the men who connect with their children while they're incarcerated don't come back to jail. That's huge. Then we said there needs to be a veterans dorm. You know, that's the fastest growth group in American incarceration. First it's veterans self-medicating PTs, D tbi, trauma issues, and then the next fastest growth group is women. And it's mostly substance abuse. So we opened a veterans dorm. I'll tell you something amazing, that whole battle buddy concept reconnected with these guys. Some Iraq era vets, some Vietnam vets, you know, mostly substance abuse challenges. I mean, 88% of the people incarcerated in America are there because of drugs and. Fighting to get it stealing because you're running out, tricking, robbing, beatings. All of that's related to outta control behavior due to substance. So we had a men's and a women's faith-based recovery dorm in that jail where we went in and shared the gospel of Jesus Christ and talked to people about how the 12 steps had to be written by God. And if you use them, you can build a life that has recovery and you'll never come back to this place again. So the Fatherhood Dorm, the Veterans Dorm, first Veterans Dorm in America, the New York Times, sent reporters to Columbus, Georgia to cover the veterans. While that was going on, jails from around the country were calling and asking us, how did you do it? What did you do? What can we learn from it? The State of Georgia Department of Corrections sent a team of 20 people in to study our dorm, and now has, prison wings in at least three locations throughout the state of Georgia where they're treating vets. Based on what we learned here, they took advantage of it. This was the cutting edge. Of incarceration in America, all because God was given a green light to do anything cool that he could come up with to change lives. Recidivism rate, two thirds of the people that walk in the back door of the jail are coming back within a year. flat out fact. You could bet a hundred bucks on every person that walks in and one and a three will beat you. Two out of three will pay you. That's how bad it is in the veterans dorm. 27% recidivism rate. That's triple that, just knocked it out of the park. The men in the Fatherhood dorm really did come back at a third, not two thirds percentage. We gave out 183 G E D diplomas in the Muscogee County Jail because we brought it into the building. I mean, we changed lives. So how did we end up with Safe House Ministries? It's a crazy night. I had that guy who would be the one that you would bet money on, never come back. Quoting scripture, got recovery, working the steps, doing everything perfect. Got ready, got outta jail in the morning and was back before two o'clock in the night. Are you kidding me? I wanted to slap the stupid off of him. I really was ticked. What the heck did you do? And he said, we took your advice. No family members brought any drugs or paraphernalia and we had a, a welcome home party for me. And he said, we. And he said, I got drunk. Then I went out and tried to buy some dope. Turned out I bought it from a cop po. I'm back in jail. And it dawned on us, same playgrounds, same playmates, same behaviors, and he went back to where he was from and, and got back into the life. He never even slept in a real bed outside of jail. Back that night before he went back to sleep. That's when we knew that we had to be able to begin to provide resources on the outside of the jail to support people. So we opened the first safe house right across the street. Old bonding company, building foundation, fallen apart, hadn't been opened in, used in years. We fixed it up. Bill Reeves and Reeves Reckon gave us any free stuff. We need to come in and get support beams and whatever you need, a new toilet, whatever, walls. And we fixed that old shack up and turned it into this, the original safe house. And the goal was to provide a resource center and loving listening ears in a welcome safe space. That's how it started. Wow. It has come a long way since then. Uh, I know progressively over the years, the Lord has put it on your heart to just add more and more ministries, more support, more resources. So, tell us. Just a little bit about that path and maybe a few key points along the way where God did something really big to kind of take it to the next level. So this woman comes to jail carrying a one year old baby one week after she got released telling me she's homeless. Where have you been the past week? I was with my Mom. But what happened there, I'm thinking, eh, they got into a fight. We can sit down and do a little loving healing session with them and fix this. And she said, oh no, my mom's boyfriend said, them or me and our mother of the year put her daughter, and her granddaughter out. I was telling this story in a church. The pastor knew the names and I'm going like, how did you know this stuff? And he goes, the mother showed. And asked the church if we would pray for her daughter and her granddaughter because they were homeless on the streets and she thought she might be turning tricks and using drugs. So she put'em out, then went to a church and got some prayer, said that, and so at that exact moment, God timing, only the sheriff takes two buildings from a folded bonding company as part of their collateral package. I go storming into his office and say, give us that little apartment building. We'll make it into a women's shelter and we'll be able to provide housing and structured environment for the women getting outta jail. So we, he said, you know, sheriffs can't be in the real estate business. So at that time, Trinity Episcopal turns right around and they want to invest in this idea for a women's shelter that can take women and kids. And it was different than a normal emergency shelter overnight. Only we could take women and kids and let'em stay there while they looked for work, put together childcare, saved up enough money to move into their own place. I mean, that's unheard of. And so I couldn't get the sheriff to agree. And then Trinity Episcopal said they're gonna pay for everything. So the sheriff calls me up one day and he says, you gotta get these people to leave me alone. I said, what are you talking about? And he said, I got business leaders. I got, I got the mayor and a couple other people all calling me and saying, you give that building to Neil and let's build that Trinity house thing. And he said, sheriffs can't be into real estate business. Then he called me up one day and he goes, how far along are you? And I said, we have all the money. And the Army gave us all brand new furniture. You want to hear something funny? The Army had bought new furniture for their enlisted soldiers, a new generation of furniture. And so, but they made a, they made a calculation there because they'd forgot to figure out that you can't unpack a deployed soldier's stuff, so they can't take the new furniture and put it into the barrack. And the apartments that they have on post for these guys until they come home from Afghanistan or Iraq and unpacked their own stuff, put it in the new stuff. And so now they were running outta space where to store all the furniture and they still had the previous generations furniture, brand new in a box. They gave us 25 beds. They were all bunk beds. They gave us 25 beds, six couches, two uh, entertainment centers. 25, 6 drawer Chester drawers, pillows, blankets, sheets, even army, uh, lamps with army E bulbs to go in them. So I had in storage the furniture necessary to have a 25 bed women and children's shelter, all brand new in a box just waiting to be opened up. But we couldn't get the sheriff to get off the dime. So this time I said, that's how far along we are. Plus we have the money in the bank to, to fix the building. And he said, the sheriff still can't be in a real estate business, he said, but the city of Columbus can. And so he, the sheriff's department donated the building to the city of Columbus. They received it at a July council meeting, and then I began talking to the assistant city manager to work out a lease. And then the council approved the lease at an October of 2011. meeting and then I have to go in and sign the lease and they tell me I need the money. I say, what? Because it was like a dollar a year for five year lease. And I went, isn't that like, you know, government talk? You know, you don't. And he said, no, I gotta come up with it. And I said, well, why do you get all five years up front? I said, I think there's four quarters in my car. I could pay the first year's rent today. So I called my girlfriend, who also worked for the city at that time, and I said, you know, I, I'm a little short. Can you help me? She said, with what? And I said Rent, It got really quiet, like, oh good, I'm dating a deadbeat. And I, and then I let her off the hook and I said, it's for Trinity House. She gave me five bucks. I never paid her back. Ha ha. I would be the only man on the planet that didn't pay a woman back. So that's pretty cool. So my girlfriend paid the rent for five years so we could open this shelter. And so we opened Trinity. Wow. And that really, so the safe house, finding housing for women and children and the ability to, to save money, get employment, move into their own place. Phil, in the years that we've been doing this, so this is thir 12, 13 years ago, over 50% of the women that spent at least one night with us moved into their own apartments. That's powerful. Wow. That is powerful. so the women's shelter opened up and God was blessing. God was doing some great things. Tell us the next big, big step forward for Safe House. You know, I mean we, we, we realized that we needed to do the same thing for men and, because Valley Rescue does a tremendous job of providing emergency housing at the time, you know, and Salvation Army at the time was providing houses, but there wasn't any place that you didn't have to line up again. How you gonna find a job if you gotta line. To get back in the shelter. So we knew that the men needed the same thing that the women had for those that wanted to make the, the move out of homelessness. So Grace House became the next big move and through a series of events, we ended up with this abandoned apartment complex that the city had already painted Ds on it to, to demolish. and we got those given to us by the previous owner who hadn't paid his. So I got him to sign a quick claim deed, and we opened the men's shelter in December of 2014, you know, and then really moving into the, to the Rose Hill Methodist Church first as tenants, if you will. We were partners, so it it, there was a winter about eight years ago on January the sixth, the temperature was projected to be eleven, I'm from Miami. 11 A one is the first number in your temperature. Are you kidding me? So then that we decided we were gonna open for a couple of nights when it was like 11 and 12 degrees to be a place where people could come. And we were still across the street from the jail at that time. And the first night we had heard that there was gonna be another arrangement made and that there was a warming station and people could get to it. So we didn't pull the trigger. Biggest mistake I ever made. It's the saddest mistake I ever made cuz I heard God telling me we should be open and somebody told us it's covered. Don't worry about it. Plus, who knows, you guys are here across the street from the jail. So I didn't open that night. A guy named Paul Garner died on the streets of Columbus, Georgia. He'd been drinking, didn't try to get into a shelter, sat down in the middle of the night despite a bus stop, laid down to take a little nap and died. And we didn't open. I mean, I'm, I'm still hurt by that decision. And we opened the next night and then the following week it was like 18 and 19 degrees, two nights we opened again. Um, working at the sheriff's office, we made sure that dispatch and 9 1 1 all were aware that folks could be brought to us, you know, so if they saw somebody on the streets, they just put'em in a car and brought'em, and we were able to minister and keep those folks off the street and keep people safe. And then like the 26th of that January, they announced it was gonna snow. I think ice belongs in the freezer, not the front yard, but, and at that time, the pastor at the time of Rose Hill Methodist Church called me up and he said, can I do anything to help? And I went, yeah, with this freeze and the snow and everything, how about we use your building? So we moved the SafeHouse. On a Monday afternoon, we closed it, cross the street from the jail. Red Cross came by, helped us load all our gear on a trailer, drove it over to Rose Hill Methodist, and then unloaded it. Tuesday morning. We opened Tuesday night, it snowed, and we stayed open Tuesday, Wednesday, and it got to like 58 degrees on Thursday and we finally closed. And then I met with. The superintendent of the United Methodist Church, this district, which was Buddy Cooper at the time, a wonderful human being and buddy said, safe House is doing what we saw this church growing towards. Why don't we partner? And so, you know, they said, move in, use some of the building and let's grow this thing to really meet the needs of folks. And so we did. And then several years later, the church voted to close as a church and we were invited to purchase the building at an incredibly wonderful God-sized thing. And to make it even crazier, Evangel Temple heard about how much it was gonna cost to buy the building and wrote the check, how cool is God? Wow. And so those were the events that led us to where we are right now. Probably the most. Amazing moment of just watching how God is, is during Covid. You know, during Covid, everybody went home. Some worked Zoom, some didn't work. Everybody was hiding and everybody was getting out of the way. Well, we couldn't, I mean, nobody called us first responders, but a homeless person who gets covid and is out panhandling, what are they gonna do? A homeless person who gets exposed to Covid, where do they go? How do they seek help? So we made a commitment that we would not close during Covid, and we even turned the rotunda of the church into the homeless Isolation unit. The Columbus Baptist Association gave us a shower trailer that we parked right outside of the church. So this group of people had that, a porch to get outside and get some air in, and a blocked off access directly to that trailer so they could bathe every day. They had a bathroom facilities smoke a cigarette on the dad gun porch, whatever they needed to do. and then Mercy Med came in and trained us. And we owned, uh, blood pressure cuffs. We had the, uh, pulse ox thingy that goes on in your finger, and we took temperatures and we every hour monitored anybody in the isolation unit. Let me tell you something cool. Mercy Med came every month and tested, gave Covid tests free for anybody that was in the homeless community. About 180 people a month during the height of Covid in 2020 were able to come here and get tested. Guess how many people tested? Positive Zero. Okay. Guess how many people that were homeless in our community needed to go to the hospital? Zero Guess how many people got exposed to Covid or started to have symptoms of Covid and needed a place to be safe? We had 15 cuts in that room. We might have had six or eight people at any point in time and we could give them isolation cuz they were exposed. We could keep their, we would do their tests hourly. Uh, Dr. Scarborough and the staff. Mercy Med gave us instructions if the blood pressure gets in this range. If the temperature gets in this range, you call Dr. Scarborough. If it goes past that, you call 9 1 1. And so we had cough syrup and cough medicine and Tylenol and fever breaking meds so that we could treat the symptoms. I was at a, a homeless, a national homeless Medical Zoom conference where everybody was there talking about what we needed to know about dealing with the homeless population in the midst of a covid crisis. And then they asked for people to make reports. And I'm, when I got on my turn and was able to say, we never sent anybody to the hospital, we provided a place to be for a hundred percent of the people that were exposed and nervous or symptomatic, and that nobody died, One of the doctors that was chairing that thing said, we're the only place in the country that could report that kind of success in dealing with Covid. And he wanted to know what we did different. Phil, this is. One of my favorite little stories because what, what we, I told them, you know, we test everybody that walks in the door. We close the building for three hours every day. Ask everybody to sit outside. You know, we had 72 people a night sleeping in the, during the entire two months of the governor's emergency order. We never closed. We just asked everybody to leave for three hours and we washed every seat, every doorknob, every toilet, every wall, every surface. And we cleaned the building top to bottom every day to provide us clean and safe, an environment for the people that were there with us. And the guy said, everybody else did the same thing. And I said, when we. Retest. So a hundred 0.4 was the line, that was the symptom line. You had to start protecting these people. But if we had somebody at a hundred. We tested him hourly. Are there any symptom changes? The guy goes, everybody else has done the same thing. And I said, well, every morning we get together and pray. And I said, we ask God to protect us and keep us safe and show his power and his love at the safe house. here in Columbus, Georgia, and you should have heard the clearing throats in the room. You know, I don't think we had a lot of people that thought that that was the scientific approach, but I can tell you data tells us that if we didn't have anybody to die, we didn't have anybody had to go to hospital and we prayed every day. Maybe God's a good idea, you know, from that place where we've. Wow. So today we, we rent 18 apartments so that there's 36 beds for people that suffer from mental illnesses that were homeless. And so those 36 people are not homeless anymore and they're cared for. We have 104 Bed men shelter. We call it Freedom House. We have a 56 bed women and children's shelter we call Grace House. We converted our former Trinity House. Into five apartments for homeless families. In the past, everybody had to break up the family. So on any given night, we have 213 beds for homeless people of any persuasion in this community to make sure that they have a place where they can be safe. The Safe House gives out clothing for anybody that needs it. We've got a hot breakfast and a hot lunch, 365 days a year. A safe place, a welcoming place, and a place that that's blessed by the love and an amazing God. That's who we've turned into. You know. Wow. It's pretty amazing. God is, that is amazing. God has done, I have front, I have front row seats for the move of God. I feel like Jack Nicholson at a Lakers game. That is incredible. So tell us a little bit about, the ministry of Tomorrow's hope. and what that. Does at Safe House Ministries. So I mentioned before 88% of the people that are incarcerated in Americans there because of substance abuse. If we were gonna treat addicted homeless and incarcerated people, we have to treat the disease of addiction. And so tomorrow's hope, uh, been around for six years and it's really, it's a free substance abuse program. Not just a free, any kind of substance abuse program, but we are state licensed as an intensive outpatient program by the state of Georgia's Department of Community Health. And we are accredited nationally by carf, which is the, the National Accrediting Agency for Substance Abuse Facilities. We can provide what no one else does, and we do it for free. There isn't another state licensed CARF approved free program for men or women in any community in the state of Georgia and probably in the southeastern United States that I'm aware of. Because why would we say you gotta charge? And so tomorrow's hope has a couple of rules that are important. Number one, there won't be a wait list. I know in my addiction I could pick up the phone when I. I've had enough. I can't take this anymore moments. And now we get on the phone and call and they went, come back in two weeks. Who am I gonna sit around for two weeks and not use? I'm a junkie. Goodness gracious. So from that experience, we've just made a commitment. We'll hire another counselor before we'll tell somebody that they gotta wait. Somebody reaches out and says, I need help. It's free. And it's provided by an amazing God to make sure that you and your family and your community have the hope of a life free of substance abuse. Wow. So it sounds like what the Lord has put on your heart for Safe House Ministries, the way it's started, and just every step of the way as it's grown, it sounds like the Lord has put it on your heart to try and offer. Essentially any kind of support resource that might be necessary for a person who's struggling with homelessness or addictions or incarcerations, whatever they might need. it sounds like Safe House Ministries wants to help them to be renewed, to be restored and just to, to find a new life and a better life. Yeah. Yeah. And, and listen, there's some unique personality things about us. Number one, our first goal is to provide people with what they need in order to survive and succeed. But that doesn't mean that we are to duplicate what God already does. So we have an outpatient, Now we do provide housing in our shelters for somebody that is homeless, that needs treatment so that we can, you know, provide for that need. But if somebody needs residential treatment, you know, our friends at Valley Rescue have a great program. And, and our friends that are over at the Center of Hope in Anniston, Alabama have free programs. And so we can refer somebody, Alabama, go to Anniston here, go to go to Hamilton's, go to Valley Rescue, and, and get the residential treatment. So we don't do what somebody else already does. That's stupid. Why duplicate? Why waste God's money if somebody does it? But if something's missing, we're gonna step in that gap. I mean, I think that's what God's called us to do, but there's an extra ingredient. And I think the difference between being an agency and a ministry is that so I'll tell it the long way if you'll let me. People used to come up to me in my addiction and said, Neil, you're a smart guy. If you would, do you know, or why don't you? Or how come you, I mean, it's like really? Who asked you? Why are you minding my business? You don't haven't earned the right to tell me how I'm gonna get well, and yet sometimes there's this cookie cutter approach. You know, you walk in the door and say, I'm a cocaine addict. Well then you just have to do these things in this order and you'll be fine. That's a load of garbage. It's not true. Each of us is different. My self-esteem challenges, the things that scare me, the things that make it hard for me are not the same for anybody else. So you have to treat the whole person. We have to treat the body, the soul, the spirit. So sometimes I need a meal. I need a safe place to be. I might need a roof over my head so that I can get out from trying to survive and have a chance to try to grow, you know? And so what we wanna do is be able to provide those things, but the critical ingredient is to learn about you. So I don't want to have a place where you come and we tell you what to do and you get better if you do, if you ob. You don't succeed if you don't. That's not who we are. I would rather give you a meal today and not try to fix anything, but get to know you. Let me hear your story, let you learn about my story. Let's, let's see how we can get together really people to people and build a relationship that then earns me the right to make a suggestion, so I first have to earn your respect, your love, and your trust. Now I have the right to say, have you thought about this? This might be a plan that works, and now we can deal with your specific barriers. so for me it was learning how to like me and be willing to not be alone because I'm afraid of being by myself. For me, it was getting over some of those fears and those barriers. It's not the same for every person. tomorrow's hope's nine to 12 month program. The Safe House doesn't go, you know, you've been here a minute, so don't you think it's time? Shouldn't you be. If you need to be here today, we'll feed you. If you just want to be left alone right now because you're still a little bit nervous and you don't trust everybody, that's okay. Enjoy the meal. Okay, and then we'll chat with you. I'll tell you a crazy story. There's a guy whose nickname is Popcorn. Guess what his favorite food is? Popcorn. Every agency in town knew him, knows him as Popcorn, has served him in some fashion or another. This was years ago, but popcorn tells our story very good. So I'm in the jail as a chaplain in the original safe house right across the street. And so one of those days when the stress or whatever, I just wanted to step out of the building for a few minutes, and so I left the jail, went across the street, sat down in a chair at the safe house, got a cup of coffee, and I was gonna look at the paper and just go one of those. Moments, I'm reading the paper and all a sudden I hear this, I pulled the paper down, I'm looking at this guy and he goes, you know, that's popcorn's chair. I pulled the paper back up real fast cuz I'm remember paying the 40 bucks for that particular chair. And I pulled it down. I said, is he here? And no, but he'll be here. And I went, how do you know? He said, he's always here at about 10. And I went, wow. How about I get up when he comes in, said, okay, I'll make sure you know, and I put the paper back up. I'm sipping my coffee, I'm cracking up. I'm in Popcorn's chair. And we had a woman named Kim who was one of the most loving spirits that you've ever met in your life. And she was, her and her eventual husband, they met at the Safe House and they were kind of co-managers for us at the original Safe House. Kim invested six months of loving popcorn until one day he told her his real name and his story. He's a carpenter, had a little drinking thing. Okay? Some family issues, some pains that were hard to deal with, so as only God can do. Kim gets him to trust her by investing six months of love, no strings attached in popcorn. The day after he gave up his story and his name to her cuz he trusted her. Harvey Lumber calls up and says, we're looking for a part-time person to work on the floor. They gotta know wood. So she goes over to popcorn and says. How, how much do you remember about carpentry and wood? And he said, well, I know that a a two by four ain't two by four because you gotta subtract the blade cut. And she called up, Harvey put the two of'em together. He got hired. He's still homeless. I was actually sitting at a meeting of some of the agencies in this area and they said, but he's still homeless, so you didn't fix anything. And I said, the smile in his face, he looks fixed. I mean, the guy's proud. He's got a job. He making a little money. So I'm driving down the street, gosh, it was six months later and he's walking up and down Hamilton, and I'm going, I pulled over, uh, slammed on the brakes, rolled down the window. I said, why aren't you at work? And he went, you know, chaplain, a grown man ought to have a full-time job. And I said, well, I agree with that, but you know, you shouldn't give up the first one until you got the second one. He said, I did. I took your advice. He said, I'm the full-time night security man at the so-and-so warehouse. And he, I said, well dang, look at you. And he said, so I'm, this is my time. And he's just out walking some of the places he uses to walk when he was homeless. Then he, he got a place at Ralston and it was kind of a funny moment, you know. We got donated furniture. We asked people to help and we got him in an apartment all set up and I'll never forget, he only carried one thing that day. We carried the furniture, we carried the bed, we made the bed, we put it together. He carried this little 25 inch TV that across the, the. granity kind of floor in the Ralston Hotel. That's the only thing he carried. He took that TV up and he set it up. After we brought in all his furniture, he played us wonderfully. He was hilarious that day in his chair to watch his TV in his apartment before he took a nap and went to work. I still see popcorn in and around Columbus, Georgia, and it's been 10 years. He still has a job. He still has his own apartment. He still does. Everything is necessary, and it's all because Kim lovingly invested six months in his life to earn his trust so that he would listen to a suggestion. So, do we cure things quickly? Probably not. Is it life changing? Heck yeah. You know what? I think we honestly move the needle because of the love that we invest in the people that we serve. And we don't make'em perform, achieve, but we, we give them the opportunity to grow, to be loved, to be safe, and to be welcomed. Yeah. That's amazing. It's just sharing the love of Jesus and. As the opportunity comes then being able to share the truth of Jesus as, as they're willing to ask for it. Now, praise the Lord. It sounds like God has done some amazing things with Safe House Ministries. Yeah. it sounds like, he is using the ministries of Safe House to really move the needle, as you say, and change a lot of people's lives. Yeah. And the community. You know, we live in a community that's got one of the lower chronic homeless rates, veterans, homeless rates. We've got a community that's got what, less than 70 people that were unsheltered. You know, so most of our homeless people are in shelters or in some kind of housing or transitioning into permanent housing, you know, and it's not just us. I mean, it's working with United Way and Home for Good and Open Door, salvation Army Valley Rescue, a group of ministries and agencies that are all rowing in the same direction. And I think that's the last thing that makes sense to us is that we are not an island. We're part of a community, a community of people who deal in this specific area. So we partner with agencies and ministries that provide substance abuse. We partner with people that provide housing and we partner with people that provide long-term payment, you know, vouchers and support for housing. So, you know, and at the same time, the business community, we have a workforce development center and we give tours. I'm sitting at a meeting with some local employers one day, and this was about a year and a half ago, and we, they were talking about how hard it is to get people to come to work for their, their firms and that, and you know, I asked the question, I said, well, who's doing anything different? I mean, the old model of sit behind the HR desk and wait for somebody to walk in apparently isn't working cuz we got job openings everywhere. So what are we gonna do different, And somebody said, well, you, what's your suggestion? And I said, well, you need people. And I got unemployed people. What if I put 15 of'em in a van and brought'em over here? And you put on a tour, show them your place, let'em talk to some of your employees, let'em meet some of your managers and hear what the job is and what the team spirit is here and what it's like to work here. And you put on the dog, show'em what's up. Right? So we've been to a number of places. People got jobs. We brought the folks there. we've done electrical apprenticeship prep classes twice. We partnered with Goodwill on that. We partnered with Goodwill again on, on a HVAC apprenticeship program that we just completed with working with Goodwill and then Goodwill and us and a outfit in Atlanta that Howard. The founder of Home Depot put together called Construction Ready, which is a lengthy program teaching construction skills from OSHA all the way to specific tasks of the specific jobs that exist in construction. So we've been able to help our folks get jobs in hvac, get jobs in electrical companies, get jobs in construction as skilled labor, which means not minimum wage. I, I know that the United Way. has changed some of their focus going forward. One of'em is to move the needle to lower poverty in our community by 50% in the next 10 years. Now, the poverty level for a single person is$14,580. I don't think you can live on 14 eight. That's basically minimum wage, but I think it's over 20 grand. That's over$10 an hour in order to pay. for a little apartment, go to the movies a couple of times a month, buy groceries, stock your refrigerator, be able to fix something if it breaks. Got a little saving set aside. And so we've started setting a goal for everybody that lives in our shelters and everybody that we deal with is to make sure that they have the capacity to get employed one, and then move from an entry level job to get the training necessary to get to something that pays in the twenties or higher. I mean, electrician jobs, HVAC jobs, plumbers, welders, these are all training programs that we're doing or working on in our workforce center that, you know, we don't want to just get somebody in our shelter and feed them. We would like'em get into their own apartment and we don't want'em to back as a client. I would rather meet somebody that comes in to tell their testimony about how God changed their lives for good, and then how that changes Columbus, Georgia for good. Wow. So, Neil, could you maybe just, I know you have so many stories, but think maybe of one person that, I know you told us about popcorn, but maybe as someone else as well, that that is just an amazing story of what God did to take them, from a place of great pain, to a place of great joy. So, I'm gonna tell you about my friend Jeff. Okay. Bless his heart. he was from a, he was in a county jail in another county, in the state of Georgia. And in everybody's estimation, a complete failure. Never not gonna be a drug addict, a loser gonna be incarcerated for the rest of his life. In and out. That's everybody believed about him, and I think he might have thought it was possibly the truth too. You know, really at the end of his rope. He reached out to us about could he get into our treatment program. Then it turns out that him and his lawyer were hoping to get into something as an alternative to incarceration. One last chance kind of a thing, you know? And so we agreed. We gave him an assessment. We thinking in deepen his heart. His goal was to not be a drug addict for the rest of his life. He wanted to have a real life. So we said yes. Now I gotta tell you, the jail E was at had him in a work release mode. He worked at a nursery during the day and called me at least once a week. I mean, it was to the point I would see the phone number of that florist in that other county and went, oh, it's my friend. And of course, listen, it's to the lawyers, man. You gotta talk to the lawyers. And then we gotta get to the judge. And once all that happens, I promise you, Jeff, we're in. I mean, he was becoming a major league pain. So he finally gets to court. The judge says yes. He arrives in Columbus. We house him at our men's facilities enrolled in tomorrow's hope. He's going through the steps and I find out that he's got an open warrant, and it turns out that the probation officer from the county he's from. Was so convinced that he never should have been given this alternative, that he should have just gone to prison because he's a, a mess up who's just gonna mess up that the guy didn't want to go through the paperwork of canceling the warrant and then having to refile a new warrant when he relapsed, which I don't think is really the right way to do business. But he refused to pull the warrant. I had to tell Jeff, don't ride with anybody. Don't ever be in a car with anybody. Don't ever be in a situation where you get pulled over for something that you weren't doing, and then you make sure you don't do anything that can look inappropriate so that you get pulled. You gotta be the number one United States grade A citizen. Nine, 10 months later, he finishes the program. He's working. He's already living in his own apartment. He's still in the program, in the aftercare phase, doing the right thing, going to work every day, putting money in the bank, saving money. So he get his own apartment, moves into the apartment, and life is doing good to the point that his teenage son is allowed to be reunited with him and moves here. And Jeff has to get at a two bedroom apartment so that he can raise his son. They go to church together. They got baptized together at that church. And I had the pleasure of calling the probation officer and saying, he's graduated, he's employed, he has savings, he has his son who he's raising right, and making him do his homework. Don't you think it's time to pull the dad gum warrant? And he went, I do. Wow. That's what we get to do. Yeah. That's our job. That's a pretty cool job. That's, you know, what, somebody actually pays for me to watch God work in God sized manner and watch the lives mine included, get turned and people have a chance to, to really live amazing lives. That is awesome. Well, thank you for. Following the call to the Lord to do that work. It's a hundred. Thank you for trusting in him to do the big things that he is doing. And, it's so great to get to talk with you. It's so great to hear some of these stories. I know there are so many more, so maybe sometime in the future we'll, we'll be able to hear some more of those stories. Neil, is there any, any last thing that you want to say? Just thanks folks for being part of. The move of God. All right. Amen. I would like to say a short prayer and, ask God's blessing. Father, thank you for your goodness. Thank you for the work that you're doing. Thank you, most of all for Jesus, for the sacrifice he gave so that we could be saved. Thank you for the work you've done in Neil's life, the transformation that you've made, and just for the calling you've given him, thank you for the work of Safe House Ministries and for the work of so many other ministries and people in our community that are just wanting to serve you and serve others. Guide us, direct us Father, for anyone on this podcast that is looking for hope. I pray that you would lead them to the place that they need to be, that they can find you and get that hope. And if that safe house, then lead them to safe house and just we love you and praise you, and Jesus knew I pray. Amen. Amen.
Phil Shuler:We look forward to being with you again next week as we share another testimony about the power and the goodness of God to change lives through Safe House Ministries. if you are someone listening to this podcast that loves to hear these stories of the great things that God is doing in changing people's lives for the better, and if you would like to be a part of that work, please reach out to us You can reach us at 2101 Hamilton Road, Columbus, Georgia, 31,904. You can call us at seven oh six three two two. 3 7, 7 3, or you can email us at info@safehouse-ministries.com.