When John Nugent got out of prison in the summer of 2017, he was determined to turn his life around. No more briefcases filled with drugs and counterfeit bills driven, without a license, in a car without plates. He was going straight. And that meant days working at the tire scrap yard and nights spent in a sober living home.
“It was miserable,” Nugent said. “But it was something.”
Today, Nugent serves as the managing director of Beacon Community Connections, a Lafayette nonprofit with a growing portfolio of programs to address the social factors that influence health — from transportation to housing and involvement with the criminal justice system.
The latter is the target of Beacon’s newest initiative in-the-making, an anti-recidivism program focused on rural communities.
Under Nugent’s leadership, Beacon is participating in a fellowship program funded by the Department of Justice to lower substance use rates among formerly incarcerated people, providing them with better opportunities as they re-enter society. Currently in the first phase of its program, Beacon, along with a group of other organizations from all over the country, is zeroing in on what such a program could look like locally.
“We don’t want to just replicate what we’re already doing, I’d love to add on to it,” Nugent said.
Beacon already runs anti-recidivism programs in Lafayette and Calcasieu parishes. Through the DOJ-funded Reaching Rural fellowship, Nugent is hoping to expand and tailor the program to meet the needs of rural communities in Acadiana.
“[Reaching Rural] is really there for the community to shape to what makes sense for them,” said Tara Kunkel, founder and executive director of Rulo Strategies, the consultancy firm that works with fellows to plan and evaluate strategies, and identify funding opportunities, as part of the program.
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By connecting patients with housing, transportation and other support after discharge, Beacon Connections has helped its clients stay healthier and tallied millions in savings for the healthcare system.
In Acadiana, this will likely focus on connecting those leaving prison with educational and job opportunities and drawing from Nugent’s own experience. By partnering with South Louisiana Community College, local chambers of commerce and local employers, for example, Nugent sees the program as providing hope to people at a time in their life when everything seems uncertain.
Getting them trained up for a new job, making sure they have the certifications they need to continue in a job they’ve held previously, “these are small- and short-term goals that we can give someone to be able to make a huge difference for them moving forward,” Nugent explained.
The local economy and employers stand to benefit too, he added. “We know you’re struggling to find quality workforce, we can help you with that,” Nugent summarized his pitch.
Nugent hopes to pilot the program in Vermilion Parish and already has some local buy-in.
“If we don’t have a healthy workforce here in town and we don’t get our crime under control, more businesses are going to bail,” said Lauren Trahan, executive director of the Vermilion Parish Chamber of Commerce based in Abbeville. Formerly incarcerated people should be part of that workforce, she added. “It’s an untapped resource. They are ready for change and growth.”
For those reentering society after time spent in prison, support from the local social and economic ecosystem can prove life-changing.
“We become conditioned to our conditions,” Nugent said. Feeling unwanted by family, friends and society at large, and being without a game plan for life after prison can lead those leaving prison back to a life of substance abuse and crime, perpetuating a cycle of incarceration.
“Humans, we need a place to belong,” he noted. “We want to feel needed.”
Beacon’s existing programs show the impact that breaking that cycle can have.
Nearly half of those leaving prison in Louisiana return within five years, according to data compiled by the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections. Those with multiple past convictions tend to return more quickly and at higher rates.
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More than half of those with four or more offenses return to prison within a year. Beacon’s current programs focus on this higher-risk population and, according to Nugent, has seen no returns to prison so far, a little over one year into its existence.
Joshua Rodgers is one of the program’s current participants. Soft-spoken, with a Mississippi drawl, Rodgers felt lost when he left C. Paul Phelps Correctional Center in DeQuincy in September, after 15 years spent in corrections for various offenses in four different states.
“When I got out of prison, I didn’t know left from right,” Rodgers remembers. “I didn’t even know what an app on my phone was.”
Beacon’s staff found him a sober living facility in Lake Charles where he could live rent-free for six months. When Rodgers realized the facility wasn’t as sober as advertised and worried about falling back into substance abuse, Beacon paid for his first month’s rent in a different home, where he has been living ever since.
Rodgers credits Beacon’s program with giving him a greater chance of success on the outside. “If you don’t have a house to live in or somewhere to live, you’re going right back to the street. You’re going back to hustling and making money selling drugs,” he said. “And then you’re right back where you were.”
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Instead, with the help of the Beacon program, Rodgers was able to move into stable housing and worked as a busboy at a Lake Charles restaurant for a while after he got out, until health issues prevented him from continuing the physically demanding work.
He now helps other residents in his sober living home access the resources they need, using what he learned from Beacon’s staff. “Everything they’ve done for me, I’m able to help other people getting out of prison today,” he said. “[I’m] giving back to people what was given to me for free.”
For Nugent, helping others also became a way of helping himself. After finding faith during his last stint in prison, he joined a local church with a strong recovery ministry. Applying what he had learned during his own time in sober living, he went on to found a group of sober living facilities with the support of his church and public donations. Last year, he joined Beacon as its ally response coordinator, managing a peer-support system to respond to and prevent drug overdoses.
“All I did was take everything I learned that I used for bad and turn it towards good,” he said. Now, he’s hoping Beacon’s programs can do the same for others.