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When Julian* finished serving his sixteen-year prison sentence, he thought his future in the world was bleak.
“I knew [Julian] was exceptionally intelligent, gifted in so many ways, but he worried that he was going to have to live hand to mouth for the rest of his life, that he would be working jobs that were unsatisfying, that people would always see him as some type of criminal,” Fr. Dustin Feddon recounted over the phone.
Fr. Dustin is the founder of Joseph House in Tallahassee, Florida, a transitional home for men newly released from prison. He established the house—where he now also lives—to help men like Julian adjust to life outside their cells. Between the practical resources and the community support Joseph House offers, residents forge a new path for their lives.
A few months into his stay at Joseph House, Julian enrolled in the local community college and quickly made the dean’s list. He interned with a criminal justice reform nonprofit. Now majoring in human rights and criminology at Florida State University, he’s considering law school after graduation. “It was a journey,” said Fr. Dustin.
Not a Halfway House but a Home.
Fr. Dustin was a seminarian for the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee when he first got involved in prison ministry in 2013. Visiting inmates primarily in solitary confinement, he began to see that many of these men had little help waiting for them upon their release.
“These men were going to be leaving straight from these confinement cells back out into free society with hardly any resources, any programming, to prepare them for that transition,” said Fr. Dustin. Many of them would face homelessness, which would further elevate their risk of reoffending and ending up back in prison.
So Fr. Dustin talked to his bishop about the need to create a “humanizing” space—so unlike the confinement cells from which the men came—“where these men could come back into society and experience, frankly, love and hospitality and care and support as they begin this new journey.”
Not any house would do. It had to be in a neighborhood unlike the ones where many of these men were first arrested—that is, relatively safe, with little opportunity for substance abuse. It needed to have zoning laws that allowed such transitional housing, Fr. Dustin explained. He did not want to turn anyone down on the basis of their convictions. And importantly, he wanted it to offer a welcoming environment that could help its residents reclaim their dignity.
In 2019, the diocese purchased a house in a neighborhood in midtown Tallahassee, which it rents to Joseph House (a nonprofit) at a low rate. In May of that year, Joseph House welcomed its first resident. Since then, the organization has also acquired the house next door and, to date, has served more than twenty men.
Residents typically stay for six months to a year and a half. During that time, Fr. Dustin and his colleagues—including another priest, who lives in the house next door, as well as social workers and reentry consultants—help residents to open bank accounts, visit dentists and physicians, seek therapy (which Joseph House pays for), and make sure they’re abiding by their parole requirements.
“Institutionalization, for a long period of time, has definitely left its mark on them,” said Fr. Dustin. “As men will tell me, they need someone to hold their hands while opening up these accounts, or going to get food stamps, or going to the grocery store for the first time.”
But in addition to practical help, the warmth of the community stays with them. “A good number of [former residents] will call Joseph House ‘home’ for them, and when they come back to visit, it’s like coming back home,” said Fr. Dustin. “Or when they face a challenge or a setback, they’ll give us a call and talk things through with us.” Some even stay in touch with other men who lived in the house at the same time. It’s truly an adopted family.
Taking Dreams Seriously.
Fr. Dustin does not require any religious engagement of the men who live at Joseph House, and their faith backgrounds vary. He feels called “to express the love of God unconditionally for these men” (in spite of his own shortcomings, he added). That means that, no matter their beliefs, they are welcome.
But many of them are drawn to the story of Joseph, son of Jacob, in the Book of Genesis. Sold into slavery by his brothers and imprisoned, yet ultimately rising above his circumstances and his past, Joseph is a powerfully resonant figure. “He, too, was incarcerated. He, too, was far from home. He, too, was seeking to be reconciledwith his family,” said Fr. Dustin. “He, too, was a dreamer.”
So Joseph is a natural patron—and the namesake—of Joseph House. And the more Fr. Dustin reflected on Joseph’s story himself, the more he realized that taking dreams seriously must be central to the house’s mission. “Someone who has that capacity to dream—and to dream good dreams, to dream big dreams—is more likely to have greater buy-in and investment in reintegrating back into society,” he said.
Owning a car or a home, starting a career, having a family—these are big and beautiful dreams. But first, many of the men have to crack open the door to the goodness of other people. Julian, said Fr. Dustin, is an example of someone “who came out [of prison] kind of fearful and anxious but, in the end, trusted in the possibility of goodness.”
“It took long conversations between [us] about the importance of leaning into other people’s goodness,” Fr. Dustin remembered. “And though you may be afraid that they’re going to reject you, most people, when they meet you, are going to accept you, and they’re going to love you. And when you lean in on that, and you trust thata little bit, so much good follows.”
Fr. Dustin is dreaming, too. He hopes to be able to expand Joseph House’s mission to serve a larger population, perhaps even women as well as men. And he would love to see a lay community formed whose charism is providing the relational support that is so essential to these individuals’ renewal.
“I don’t want to ever get to where we’re buying houses, expanding, but not providing the safe, trusted relationships to create those communities and support,” he explained. “So that’s a big need, because there’s only so much of me that can go around.”
As for the Church, Fr. Dustin hopes that Catholics will learn deeper trust in God’s mercy. We are all more than the worst thing we’ve ever done—the evidence for which he sees daily in his work with the men he accompanies.
“For the vast majority of these individuals, if they are welcomed into a loving, supportive community,” said Fr. Dustin, “they will grow.”
*Name changed for privacy
