The Homeward Podcast
This Podcast is brought to you by Knox Area Rescue Ministries. Our mission is to illuminate the human stories behind homelessness, redefining what 'home' truly means through real voices, honest conversations, and education that fosters empathy, awareness, and action.
The Homeward Podcast
Episode 15: The Restoration Process
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Mentions:
- CityGate DC Forum 2026
- Emmy Award Winning Documentary
- Conversations on a Bench
- Documentary
- New Life
- Serenity
- Take a Tour of KARM
- Programs Overview at KARM
- Click “What We Do” then click each program
- Episode 10: Homelessness On A National Level
- Substance Abuse and Homelessness Article
- Location Helps Recovery Article
- Scripture About Sewing Seeds
- Men’s Recovery & Restoration
- Women’s Recovery & Restoration
- KARM’s Home Care Program
- KARM’s Aftercare Program
Sticky Notes:
- Watch our Emmy Award-winning documentary! There, you'll see John, a graduate from our New Life program, who we talked about in this episode!
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Interested in learning more about us? Please visit karm.org or reach out to Celia at clively@karm.org today!
Interested in learning more about us? Please visit karm.org or reach out to Celia at clively@karm.org today!
Welcome to the Homeward Podcast, the show where we illuminate the human stories behind homelessness, redefine what home truly means through real voices, honest conversations, and education that fosters empathy, awareness, and action. Karma's highly rated by Charity Navigator, recognized as the best Christian workplace, and we're accredited by the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. We are one of 30 rescue missions in the country, rated as excellent and distinguished from Citigate. And most recently, we're an Emmy Award-winning organization with our documentary. You can click the link in the show notes to watch it today. We're doing today's episode a little differently. So back in October, we were one of 70 missions across America that participated in Citigate's Conversations on a Bench. This was a 24-hour live stream event where Janita McCartney, CARM's president and CEO, sat on a bench interviewing people for 24 hours. This episode today features a clip from that Conversations on a Bench event. And so it features Jimmy Reagan, CARM's director of New Life. Jimmy and Janita talk about addiction, faith-based recovery, and CARM's New Life program. I'll catch you on the back end of this episode with a sticky note. So I hope you enjoy.
SPEAKER_01So welcome to Conversations on a Bench. So with me is Jimmy Reagan. And so Jimmy will get to share a little bit about his role at CARM in a second. But what do you think about this idea? What do you think about rescue missions across the country having conversations on a bench for 24 hours about homelessness? What did you think when you first heard it?
SPEAKER_00Well, I thought it would surely be hard for the person who had to do it all the hours. Yeah. But otherwise it's exciting to think about that much exposure and that many things you can share. Because most people really don't know what we do. Right, right. So that makes pretty exciting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's I think um everyone I've had a chance to talk to so far though, it's it's it's ongoing for all of us, right? So we're always surprised when people are like, well, what do you do? And you're like, you don't know by now. And so anytime we can educate people about what CARM does, and and not only educate them, but share the um share the complexity of the problem, share um how we're responding, and just um, like I've talked with a few of the people just about the hard days, especially people who are in our program area. Um, so um share with people just a little bit about you, um, how long you've been at CARM, um, what brought you to CARM, and um then we'll talk a little bit more about new life. So just share a little bit about Jimmy.
SPEAKER_00Okay, well, I was a pastor for about 16 years and then some changes in my life, and um I was out of state and came back to East Tennessee, and my dad actually um always keep kept up with CARM. He always sees you on the news and that kind of thing. And he was telling me at the time there was something to come out about a job opening, and I was so excited to go back into ministry, and um it's just been a thrill to me to get it's it's been a challenge because there's differences, but there's similarities also. Oh, I bet there's lots of similarities, yeah, and I've just loved working here and working with the men in new life right up my alley.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so you've been here how long?
SPEAKER_00Uh just about three years.
SPEAKER_01Three years, okay. So um in those three years, how have you seen um our street homeless population, or maybe even just like the face of homelessness, how have you seen that change? Like how's it changed over those three years?
SPEAKER_00Well, the first thing I noticed it just seems like it's growing in number. Like there's just more and more, you know, uh working as I have with the men, you know, we're kind of at an end of a process, but it just seems like there's more and more people out there. Yeah. Um sometimes it just seems like there's more and more reasons throwing people into homelessness. Yeah. You know, the economy, just there's just more and more factors that seems to show up all the time. Yeah. Um my awareness is raised about like how much mental health is involved. Like that was a surprise to me that that was that much of a factor. Yeah. And uh just the really the sheer numbers, just everywhere. Because you could easily, before you get into this ministry, kind of not notice.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I was one of those people, like I I was very just ignorant of what CARM did and and just the plight of homelessness before I um started working here, and so I can see, yeah. And so um, so let's jump into new life. Okay. So earlier today, Cynthia was here and we talked about serenity. Um so our long-term recovery program for women. Share with us um a little bit about new life and um what it does and where you're at and how many men you're serving.
SPEAKER_00Also tell us a little bit. Well, it's an exciting, you know, change for Carmen. These three years I've been here. We, you know, you guys had a vision, you changed it. Yeah, I guess we're a lot more like Serenity. They've got all those years of experience, and we're still just taking the training wheels off, so to speak. Yeah, but it's just so exciting. We're running right around 30 men right now out at the ranch where we are. So that change has been another new change to navigate, but it's been such a blessing. Oh, I know. It's just so incredible, you know, the the opportunities that we have compared to here. I mean, I thank God for what we did while we were here, right? But it's just so exciting to think, you know, what we're doing and the more opportunities that we have for the men. So we're we're a 12 to 18 month residential program, Wax Serenity. Right. And uh so we have a year of the program that's the intense part of it. So think of it's like uh one-year absence-based, and so that's the year where we really work on the person, and then at the end of that year they go into a transition phase. We're gonna help them get a job if they're able to do that, and then conclude around the 18 month, hopefully, uh that's a time frame, but everyone ends with safe housing. Yeah, that's kind of the end of the journey. Yeah, but the key, because most all of our men have drug and alcohol addiction. Yeah, I'd say 98%. And so getting working through that to set them up for success when they get out. So that's kind of how the looks.
SPEAKER_01Are you seeing um they're coming to you with um issues with addiction, but are they also coming suffering from mental health issues as well? Is that increasing, you think?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, and I think they're physical um issues. People are coming to us, I feel, with just um they just seem like broken down. And it I think that's it.
SPEAKER_00And you know, in our program particularly, so they were in their addiction, they thought nothing of their health. So they get out there with us, and for the first time in all these years, going to the doctors all the time. I mean, it's just there's so many things they haven't cared for. A lot of physical, yeah, and a lot of them just have uh just a laundry list, and some are pretty serious actually. Yeah, and you know, we'll take them in the program, and that might not even be obvious right off the bat. So there's been a big increase. I would say our average age I calculated a few months ago was like 52 at that particular time. And so if they've been in addiction for a lot of years, by that point, a lot of health problems can be brewing. Yeah, and so there's a lot of them. Then the mental health you say, you know, a lot of them can be controlled with their medications, but most of the time if they show up from addiction, they've not even been doing that well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So there's a lot to navigate there. We work with the partners here and try to get them in to see uh someone about that, and you know, if they can be, they can make it in our program if if the medications can kind of keep that under control.
SPEAKER_01Right, right. So um for those people who are watching who may not know, um the New Life program was here in our downtown campus, and um it was just always our vision that it would be somewhere else. And so a lot of rescue missions across the country have long term programs that are not on their main campus and they're out remotely. Um, and we saw we knew the importance of that, um, that that was gonna be such a critical need because it's so hard. I think someone had said one time that the two tenets in recovery are change your playground, change your playmates. And so trying to do a recovery program right here in the middle of the city where men could just walk out the front door to a former playground with former playmates. So um that was um just such an exciting time and opportunity for us to move the program out in the day. Is it do you call it Dandridge area?
SPEAKER_00Do you say dandridge or do you say the mailing address would be, but it's closer to what everybody would think of the Kodak area going in Severeville?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and so it's just such a great piece of property. Um, you know, we've replaced concrete with green grass and just um now it was in water, and it's just it's just beautiful. So it's just so it's just I love it to sit back and think about the men and the contrast of what they have here.
SPEAKER_00Well you bring up a great point because when we were here, if they felt overwhelmed in the program, it was just a few steps out of back door, yeah, and on the street. Now they have to give more thought to it. They can contemplate a little bit more. We're far enough out.
SPEAKER_01Well, this is a far walk if I think I'm gonna leave this program. You know, we had that all the time.
SPEAKER_00I think we've had one just leave since we've been there. That's it. I mean, that's just that improvement alone's worth so much.
SPEAKER_01Because I do, I think when I'm down here on the main campus and I'm I look up and I see that like that metal landing up there where the men had to just congregate. I was like, man, now they have wide open spaces where they can just walk in and just hear from the Lord so much easier, I feel, when you're in nature. Um oh, it just doesn't aren't good.
SPEAKER_00It's so good because you know you'd be there, they're trying to not be triggered, and if they have to run inside, if they were on the outside porch looking at the street, run in and tell us to come out and narc in someone. Yeah. I mean, just the fact now that you know we're gonna see a deer pour up, right? There's some ducks come around or something like that, or the fresh air, it's that's such a difference. Yes.
SPEAKER_01Um, so what's been your biggest, I guess, you know, awful in your um current role? Like kind of transitioning from pastor to this.
SPEAKER_00There's a well, you never, you know, as a pastor, if you think about it, you never get an opportunity this level. Here's these men, they come in, you're so close with them, you literally can work with them every day. You never get that scenario in a pastorate. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, that would never be possible. You know, a few services, the few special counseling sessions, but here you get to work every day. You also can see the progress every day. It's it's a lot more reality because you know people's gonna put on the best foot forward for a pastor. Sure. But there you just see them in real life every day, and uh, it's just it's almost refreshing because for all the obstacles working with that population, they're a little quicker to admit their issues or their problems, or to say I'm broken is not such a challenge.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00To me, that's that's really been refreshing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think too, you know, and I've shared with people um a lot of times to sharing our own family's personal connection to addiction and faith-based recovery. Um, and I think it's just, and I share this with our teams when we talk at all staff gatherings and whatnot. Faith-based recovery is so critical. And it's just so important because it's helped me, having lost our adult son to an overdose. Um, he was fresh out of a program a week, a week to the day that he died. And um I can remember getting a call from the investigator who was working uh Tyler's case, and he said, ma'am, he said, I need to share something with you. He said, I think it'll help you. He said, uh, because there was an investigation and he couldn't share everything, but what he did share, he said, Ram, he said, I can tell you from your reading your son's phone and reading his messages, um, the final minutes of your son's life were filled with nothing but the gospel. You wow, and I can remember in that moment I was just like that meant so much to me because it just helped my heart. And um, and the reason, and the won't, and the officer was able to share that with me because he said Tyler was texting his counselors at the recovery program he was in, just he was in he needed help. He was he was struggling, and he was asking for prayer, and they were just peppering him with scripture and prayer. And um, oh my goodness, to have that as I was grieving was so important and what a gift. Um, and plus the other role, um, because he went through a long-term faint-based recovery program, it's where he was he had a he got re-baptized and he had an amazing um, you know, they dumped him in a huge lake, similar to what we do at New Life. Yes. Um, and because of that, I know I'll see him again. Amen. And that's the role that you all get to play in people's lives. Yeah, I think, man, it's just amazing. You have to sometimes pinch yourself so that you get that opportunity.
SPEAKER_00It's just I just can't imagine every day loving my job for the reason you just described. Because you get to see that, you know, you could focus on the hard days, the going backwards. Yeah, I fully believe that even, you know, you talk about your son. I know the Lord is, you can't say because someone's in addiction, the Lord's not in their life. It's a battle. Oh, I know it's an extreme battle. And uh there's parts of it that is overwhelming to a person at times and they need help, and it's just hard. We see that. We see some people come to our program and find Christ. We see some come and they knew Christ, but they did not know how to work on this map.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, or at a deeper level, they get to know him at a deeper level, and oh, and I just think the opportunity that you all have just to change that trajectory of someone's life. I it's just I'm in awe of what you all get to do. It's because there are hard days. There are hard days, there are challenging days, right? When you feel like you're wrangling a bunch of school kids on a field trip, I'm sure it can be hard, but we call it hurting cats. Hurting cats. Um, how do you handle the hard days? Like what how do you decompress and how do you kind of get grounded together?
SPEAKER_00Well, a few things uh that I always do is I tell myself, you know, I'm not their savior. Jesus is. And so I get the privilege of being involved, but the whole thing's not on me. Yeah. Because I can't carry that weight. But and you know, I also thank God for all the, you know, there's passages in the scripture that talk about sowing seeds. Yeah. Sometimes we only sowed it, or maybe we only watered it. And sometimes in the ministry we actually see the harvest come in. Yeah. That's thrilling. But I don't want to discount. Maybe some other Christian later will see the harvest where we only sowed the seed or watered. Yeah. And that really encourages me because I don't ever let myself think it's in vain. If if one of the residents it ends in a way we wouldn't prefer, I mean, if it ends by them making a bad choice, and yes, it's heartbreaking. We just want to turn it to prayer, but yeah, you know, we'll keep praying. And we're thankful for the part we had. Yeah. So many times when we see somebody really making progress, they'll refer to something that some Christian told them ten years before, and it seemed, I'm sure, to everybody involved, it made no impact whatsoever. Right. But why are they quoting it 10 years later? Yeah, it's the colour. Because now something happened that never left them. Yeah. So I think, you know, I think that's one of the keys for me, which is to remember I have a wonderful privilege in my role, but it's ultimately Christ. And we get a privilege to do whatever we get to do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So what do you kind of see the trajectory? Do you see? I know with addiction and with homelessness and that combination is continuing to to grow by leaps and bounds. I mean, are you do you see yourself at New Life One Day being full to capacity and hey, we need more space?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, one of the things that that's a dream of mine is us growing as a staff to maximize what we got. I want us to have all we can. The investment's been made. I want us to grow. You know, there's so many new things we're learning on a new property. Yeah. The little stuff like where the boundaries are and all that sort of thing. But I I I desperately I want to I don't want there to be, I want us to be a capacity and I want to grow on. We are blessed. Um the staff that God has sent us out there is exceptional.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00To a man, they love the Lord and they love the population we work with.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And we're, you know, we're always ready. Yeah. I want to see us grow. I hope that we're not limited by what the current my dream would be down the road for sure. Yeah. I hope we can have more. And I think we could.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know what I'm saying? I hope we're learning. You know, we are newer. We don't have all of Serenity's experience, for example. But I want us to grow both as a as in what we do, and then maybe the ministry itself can grow also.
SPEAKER_01And it's that ripple effect, right? It's that ripple effect. We talked about that earlier this morning. That when you get to change that life of one person and see one person, you know, say John, when John celebrates being fully restored, and he's also restoring relationships that were so severed. And then there's that I just love that ripple effect of what we get to do too. And plus, you know, I'm just duh building the kingdom. I mean, I just it's just it's awesome. It's an awesome opportunity.
SPEAKER_00If you think about John, I know you're gonna talk to him later, yeah, which will make enjoyable for everybody watching. Yeah, is uh I remember the day his sister brought him. Do you? And I can just remember her face. You could tell she loved him. I know at the end of their rope, didn't know what to do. Yeah. She's coming back for the graduation next week. That's awesome. And just that journey to see you know him rescued. He was a veteran and and deterred, and things just got out of control. And you know, he's just such a beautiful person.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And such a brain's looking forward to meet um spending time with him. He got to be with us at our event last week, and he got to share more of his heart because he's a quiet, he's a man of few words, he's pretty quiet, but I felt that he opened up and it was just really sweet and endearing what he shared with our guest about, hey, you know, just look people in the eye. You know, when you pass people on the sidewalk and you, you know, don't just walk around them, but literally look look people in the eye and and say hello. And just it just means so much. I think that's one of my favorite things to do here too, is like when you spend time in Hope Haven or um just to like look people and just say, What's your story? What's your name? What brought you here? And people just want to feel seen and and heard and such. Absolutely. Yeah. Um, what um how many of the men I've noticed too um some of our recent hires, um, men are coming out of a recovery background. Um how's that working?
SPEAKER_00So we we have three men on our staff. They are invaluable for their insights. I mean, they just they kind of know. Yeah, it's kind of good for the rest of us. I've actually gone in the office and said, explain to me what I'm seeing in this person. Help me understand how they feel right now. Yeah, I had to do that this week because I was just to be honest with you, a little bit bewildered about a thing or the person. And they could just help me reason through it. And they on the other hand, also they can see through certain things that we might miss, but they're passionate. Yeah, they're passionate.
SPEAKER_01That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00I mean, they just um they love those men and they do awesome work, and sometimes the men listen to them in a special way, and um I think any long term recovery program would be blessed to have a portion of the staff.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, just that lived experience. I think it brings a totally different dynamic.
SPEAKER_00There's times you just know I need to send that staff member to talk to that person because of the dynamic that you. Somebody to understand. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Do you see yourself having a beautiful garden like this out at the ranch?
SPEAKER_00Yes. Uh maybe growing some vegetables. We have a spot picked out. That'd be good. But to get them we got there just a bit too late for the planting season this year and all the move-in things. But yes, I want to do that.
SPEAKER_01It'll be nice if we get some snow out there this winter. I think that would be pretty. So I'm I'm looking forward to the graduation. So the first new life graduation at the ranch is next Thursday.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Um, what's that gonna look like?
SPEAKER_00Well, we're so excited. We're you know, we've we're finishing our kitchen and we think they're gonna make it. So I'm so excited about that. They're gonna hold it in our gym, and we're just gonna make it more about honoring each of these men. We have 10 graduates, and then we have two that actually passed away. They were in our aftercare program, and aftercare, that program has blessed our graduates. I'm so thankful for them. And um that you know, two had poor health like we were discussing earlier, and they passed away. Those are not. So we'll honor them, and then we'll, you know, go let them walk across the stage and and get a diploma and honor them. We're just so you know, so we got teachers to show, and yeah, they everyone have, you know, I know a lot of people, it's so easy to think of the people in addiction, it's just this cookie-cutter explanation. Every one of them has a wildly different story, oh yeah, a wildly different background. What a journey, yeah, similarities, of course, but it's just good to see God rescue people. Well, there's somebody in that class that was found by our staff down here out of a homeless camp and made it. So that's spectacular. You got like John, you know, he's a four, he's a veteran, so just this variety of people to celebrate victory from a lot of different backgrounds. I agree.
SPEAKER_01What's been one of your favorite success stories of late?
SPEAKER_00Of late. Oh my, there's so many. Well, I the one that comes to mind, and I could really pick from so many, yeah, but just popped in my mind. We had a gentleman, he's in a graduation, his name is Rudy. And when he was a boy, um he lived in kind of a poor neighborhood, had a godly mother, actually, and she died. And back in that day, I don't know how it happened, he was allowed to keep the kids, and it just like his siblings? The siblings, and he was not even, we he was not even 18 years old. Wow. And but the overwhelming pressure, a man with you know enough character to want to do that job, got kind of overwhelmed. When they kind of went their way, he kind of fell apart and had like 30 or 40 years of addiction. Wow. And he'll tell you, when he came in one day, he's kind of from the old school, he don't show a lot of emotion.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00The day before he finished the program, he walked in the office and I'd never seen him show any emotion, and he just with tears streaming down his face, he said, I needed this program. And that just will carry with me forever. I mean, that is just his testimony. A man who was just so moved and so changed. Yeah. And he can speak beautifully about what has changed specifically in his life. You know, he turned to women repeatedly, for example. And he's just the wisdom that he now sees his whole life, he can look back and reflect and like he sees where he comes, he sees where he is today, he sees what Christ has done, and and he and he's both grateful and humbled by it. And it's just a beautiful story to make.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's awesome. Do you have any um like young kids? Do you have any like 18, 19 year olds? Does that happen a lot?
SPEAKER_00Or we do that seem rare? We seem to have one or two a lot of the different times. Yeah. And they're more of a challenge, yeah, not in a bad way, because you think of it, oh, if we could just get you early. Get you early, yeah. What we could spare. Right. Maybe you won't have 40 years of addiction. Yeah. But maybe they've not. One of the things that strikes me as having a helping success is you've you've realized you've just run out of places to turn.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You've kind of come to the end of yourself. All the people that enabled you, they've all turned away. Those people seem to do the best in a program because now they know. Yeah, this is it. And sometimes the young ones, like, but you know, they usually have horrific backgrounds with no parents or abuse or something, but yeah. Still it's still challenging and fun to have a few in that age group.
SPEAKER_01What um, so what does it look like after graduation? So when someone graduates, goes through um that transition phase, what's it look like to stay in touch with people like you?
SPEAKER_00So we just started, of course, aftercare is beautiful. And we we worked with them, we thank them for what they do, but we're keeping up ourselves. We just started last month. We're going to do uh one either a Tuesday or Thursday night a month for just an alumni meeting. Yeah. We just ask them out because the ones that at least live in the area. That's a great idea. We just come out and they come in there and they we just sit around mostly and eat and talk. I thought I'd have to plan more activities. But they just love it to talk and tell us, and they kind of talk about the challenges, and I think it encourages them because you know I I saw in some of your earlier discussions with others today talking about how important community was that little connection with the community. Yeah, somebody cares. There's somebody here that's going to be sad if things go south, yeah, and to keep that. So we're gonna keep that on an ongoing basis.
SPEAKER_01I love that. And I think I'd love to see us work towards getting like an alumni homecoming or something, a homecoming of sorts, like a reunion every year of graduates. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00I think that would be fashioned dinner on the grounds, maybe.
SPEAKER_01I think that would be really cool. Well, Jimmy, um, thank you for what you do.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I love it.
SPEAKER_01I just thank you for letting me. Yeah, no, I just I'm so grateful that you're there leading the charge at new life, and I just think there's just so many great more, a lot more stories that we're gonna get to celebrate of transformation and um just pouring into people, loving them. And so um, it takes someone to lead by example, so I think you're doing a great job. So thanks. Thanks for being my guest. I'm glad to do it. And um was painless, it wasn't that bad.
SPEAKER_00It wasn't hard for me, and I'm already done. You've still got to keep going.
SPEAKER_02So, every episode, as you guys know, I want our listeners to have a sticky note of something they can take with them. It can be a challenge, a prayer, a word of encouragement, anything. So, our sticky note for today is to watch our Emmy Award-winning documentary. You'll see John, who is a graduate of our new life program that's talked about on today's episode. You can find it here in the show notes or on Carm's YouTube channel. Thanks so much for joining us today. Remember to check the show notes for any relevant links. You can find us on socials at Knox Area Rescue Ministries. Be sure to follow along so you never miss an episode. I'll see y'all at home.
