hello and welcome to the show i'm doris mangrum your host and this is stop the madness practical ways to influence the incarceration crisis i'm so excited to have in the studio today with me dr jasper lowery i had the pleasure of meeting dr lowery about five years ago i was in pre production for my new film staying changing lives after incarceration and i was looking for a local organization that embodied  the concept that we were trying to take in our in our film and i heard about you rojas and as a result of that i came and spoke with you dr lowery and asked if you would allow us to highlight your rojas and you so graciously agreed to be highlighted in our films again changing lives after incarceration so you're here today to tell us about the amazing you rojas community ministries community services that here in the open across the east bay and a don't know how far you've gone but i know that i've been following your work for the last five years and i know that you deep into the fray so thank you so much for coming and joining me here today and i'd like to just get us moving right into the flow and  start with your telling our viewers how did you get into this work what was that that time that moment that period of your life that brought you to this work well we're quickly i want just thank you first of all first stand staying on the wall and supporting the black community and it's very important that we as african americans stick together and support one another and that's partly why i'm driven to do the work and there was a time a crises that happened in my life  became a single parent with a two year old son is when the ministry called begin to kind of knock on my door so to speak and my son wound it up and transitional housing living and yet i think head start was there for to help him get started in school and all the things i needed for the boy they were there and i supported them so much and i ended up being on one of their policy councils and became the chairperson for two years so after that god blessed us to  come into the same transitional house where we landed to actually be a part owner of the house yeah so that's kind of how it all began a while a while back and then the ministry was birthed through having a ministry of helps which helped people it's needs and met people right where they were so to speak meaning however you cane is how the work began and we picked up was getting you to where you need to be with them folks are coming from every walk of life need all types of things but yet we were still able to help a lot of people that's amazing so you were a a beneficiary of the work and then you became a benefactor yes delivered to to the community how amazing is that now we're talking because you and i both know your work if you for our viewers would give a bit more information about the transitional housing that you provide what does that mean is it just a place to stay and then they go and do everything else  is it a motorized stop if you will service unit and in your transitional houses as law as well as where they are located and how how and who many how many and who you serve as well you know what doors a lot of times stigma has it were where you know they'll say transitional and then sometimes you'll say independent living stabilize housing but in need people come to you they have limited resources and so you have to match the resources to what they are able to afford and then find them a bit some time or find a studio find an apartment based upon what the able to afford is really how you rojas places people with housing but what we found out is that our system is not really designed to fund housing so therefore we had to bring services to the forefront so now community you ask me services is actually the five one c three that we broke off from the ministry in zero eight and it became its own organization  which is a community resource network with an emergency housing component so i put housing on the bag burner so people don't just come to us thinking that we're just here to house you know we're here to get your life on track to get you stabilized to bring you back home get you from previous incarceration or institutionalization we have to bring you home bring you not just to your house home but to your community home to how you want to raise your family we want to see you connect entrepreneurship services we want you to start your own business like grandpa and grandma did they started their own businesses and they were able to be entrepreneurs and then they handed that down to the generations well that's amazing yes so your work is not only the housing but the services as well now who exactly do you serve i heard you say the incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individual can utilize your housing but what other populations are also housed in your  programs were at people how to work with people with special needs so then the ministry was birthed so out of that i found that individuals that came from homelessness had mental health issues people that were previously incarcerated have mental health issues and now to date our veterans are coming home and guess what with the mental health issues that exist so therefore we've been able to again find out where a person is that mentally and then begin to start to work with them professionally and even doing this after fifteen years without the big grants and the big you know financial donations we've been able to help over five thousand people get off the streets of o allow various nationalities we don't discriminate i don't make you come to my church you know none of that kind of thing we just help you and help you with your needs i want to go back to a question that i didn't ask you at the very beginning  our viewers are wanting to know where did that word you rojas come from it has such a nice way that it flows off your lips but what does it mean and why did you select that as the name of your of your work your own house means god's prosperity and light it's an african word and it kind of was there when i met my my second wife and she kind of had the acronyms already put together and i just seen that j s in there as a way my name is in there so i kind of took a liking to the fact that it looks like j s and i'm jasper so i said that's it and god just he just stamped approval that he wanted us to be unique you can run church names last time that you comes up last i'm always at the bottom of the list but still it's more or less a really a unique organization and how we've been able to keep the doors open and so many variations i mean i've moved thirty eight times just to let you know that we still haven't found just that permanent location to actually house which is a data one right now international is where our international headquarters is we're building on that and we need all the support we can to complete that process because again when we axe for some reason nothing is there well it's it says a lot about you and your level of commitment to this work you said you've moved thirty eight times yeah i can think that the average person maybe two or three times  you know maybe this isn't the work i should be doing but here you've moved thirty eight times and you are nevertheless still in the work i know because of the work i do some of it similar to work that you are doing right that this is not glamorous work this is this is all hard work this is not pretty work if you will to to do more than say it to actually get into the trenches and do the work as you are doing yes over these fifteen years or better that you've been in the work in twenty eight i believe you said in terms of your work with profession and bellows what is the level of the need in terms of area that you know the area that we're that we're living in this case debate california area what what do you see is the level of the need and and how it's impacting our communities you know what my prayer in the beginning to kind of open it up is that i prayed to god i said lord use him in the people that you would have me to work with so i thought a few people be coming here and there to find out people never stop coming and then now to the point i can almost tell you which of the years had the most people that came the first house we had process four hundred fifty people these are status stats that the city don't know it's not a record it's not recorded four hundred fifty people came to that house in two and a half years before we moved and we helped them to move on i'm not in the business to hold on a nobody it's just to get your life stabilized q three unification get you back with your kids and your parents or what have you and get you moving and then you become a productive citizen back into society ok yeah i heard you mention a word that has now become a  word that i'm using a lot now as well as i'm working with that friends and their families as well and we know that p t s d you know of us come back with the nightmares you know really reliving things that happened to them when they were deployed and just the transitioning from a very structured environment of courage and trying to transition back into civilian life can be challenging often causing people to end up with substance abuse often causing them to end up running cars  now that you are now also including in your body of work of veterans and they are there are challenges what are you finding if there is as a unique threat i do not know that you are finding a unique threat but if you are what is a unique threat that's being found with our veterans and the challenges that they are coming back home well one threat is that no one had been providing the net and i don't mean just no one there's always been gaps in the system and we try to provide that net for the veterans and we found that working with them and some of the post traumatic issues or they come home with they needed more their own type of spaces versus shared housing spaces as well last summer the needs were now is very important and i'm just it's still a real challenge i mean we've been working primarily with veterans for since november of two thousand and thirteen and what moved me to do it is i have a sister who had been working with eighteen years and she's a war veteran and that compelled me to get more involved and find out how to get them stable and how to and then the spirituality piece had been missing so they get they get a pastor they get an executive director and they get a trainer and then they get an advocate and then they get some down home love aff so much so without all those elements like wraparound services without all those elements and you can leave something out and that will be that area that he may need or she may need the most well you know what i'm hearing and that i've gotten involved in this work as well and you've worked  the formerly incarcerated yes i know one of the things that i've known and i know you have known as well is that the path for that veteran and that path for that form the incarcerated individual is actually the same one comes home a hero another may come home with more challenges but at the end of the day their day to day after the return is very similar trying to as you just stated trying to mesh back into an environment that is changed so much when they've been stuck into the p or they've been stuck into that war zone and the incarcerated individuals been stuck in that prison and doing when the routine of that and trying to navigate now into a world that has so vastly change and being asked to just it i in and so it's a scary kind of thing that happens to that person who is really unifying and transitioning back ground walk us our viewers through what it looks like and from what y vantage has been the transitioning that you see you've told us what you do you know how do you watch that life of the homeless person change how do you know when that changes happened for that substance abuse individual or the veteran of the formerly incarcerated and now you're ready to just get out of the nest and how to how does that mean look let me target something that you mentioned when you said previously incarcerated in the veterans coming home there's a kid i would give up else and i get ok and that nugget is finance there on the battlefield are not spending and incarceration and i spending so when we come home and we give them a stabilized a place to live we provide so much such as food we take care of the expenses of the p g and e in the war and all those things are there i'd be concerned about if they have fifty to honor dollars in their pocket a week where they can buy the kids some sho in terms of the previous incarcerated but the veteran he's probably got finances that he's going to set up are he's in the process that may be a little bit different but what comes in common right away is being able to financially support the family your child old your wife or sometimes you have to be within the program six months before you can go back home so being able to give them things to do that would benefit them rather than just take their a ranter their steiff another pledge but to give give something back that they can utilize and their everyday life is a nugget wow well that's great and you're giving them that person that's it's a personal power they're gone the next day or they're going to have to go right back to wherever so you have to give them more spirituality you have to get to more closer to god so to speak is so their conscious will come back and i'll understand that living in those conditions is not really acceptable there's that's not god's best for you and then what point did you get there you have to identify where did you step off you know to become that and of course a drug addicted they come again they come when they try a scheme a scam and they try not to they don't want to give you their g a a for rant they view so that we use a system when it comes to your agency the first exam bring you the money so that helps to to balance them out in then they need services they need some professionals that can be with them are screening them talking to them counselors and the folks they can talk to that are professional and or our bishops we use our bishops ministers to utilize spirituality  to turn around i'm hearing you say some of the things that you do to keep a person to make sure that person is ready yet to go out but if let's say you believe they are ready and they have all the tools that you believe makes them ready to move on if they need to come back are they able to come back and you can receive your service your asses for life ok matter of fact when the doors opened he never really told me or show me how to put people out put yourself out and that's primarily how it goes you come in you get started working on yourself and you moving forward we stand by you the whole way we have a exit plan and then we have a thirty day follow up sixty day follow up ninety day follow up just to see how you live and how you doing and you leave on good terms you you can return to your own house for life it's not just a day to day operation really much misunderstood a lot of times people don't understand what i'm doing when you're trying to put someone's life together forever it can be really misunderstood i'm not trying to just collect a check or some rant or you know no we want to build our culture back i i almost cut you off because you just hit a nerve with me because so often people ask why do you do this work why do you why do you care i'm asked those questions in the work that i do working with the family cars for their families do you get asked the why of it all because i heard one of the other things i heard you say a little bit earlier in our interview was that you don't get that grant money you you're doing this on i so many private support and you're on your own and with that it there takes out even more of the glamour you know we're not getting rich doing this work it's because we care so who are your partners because you're doing some pretty amazing my mighty work yeah in the community who helps you and i don't just mean financial help who are your partners in terms of volunteers who are out there with you to make this thing happen first of all i was called and i'm annoyed too and then i was appointed so i'm annoying to that this work some of the things i do around mental health severe mental health individuals people like the drug addiction but i'm still only one person and at the same time i'm improving them guess what i'm improving me that's right as a list of things that i do also while i'm doing this that was the first half of the question  the partners i mean everyone's my part you my partner just by give me an opportunity i mean i've been blessed to work with some city council people i've been blessed to work with my board of supervisors one time i got a measure a contract granted it was only a six month grant and what they require me to do we exceeded but then something happened with the measure a funding so we're still waiting for the next round of that prayerful happened this year i know this that they're trying to improve on even services that have been affected and sometimes you can't see the effectiveness if you don't have number one proper documentation number two you don't have the shine and page that says give me the money i can do it sometime i haven't been able to produce that but i can have you come and take a walk with me and i can show you the shining page because right there with the people that we serve well i think it's i'm listening to you and because i understand exactly what you're talking about you can show probably greater results yes then people who get the big money because we know oftentimes when the grants come they come with stipulations they come in boxes that are there are placed into you know in order to do the work when you do not have that encumbrance you're now free to do the work that you know me to be i want to turn down three grants right with behavioral health care services and i'm dealing primarily with mental health over the years that you're in it to win it and so people will sense that in terms of the people that you serve the people that actually end up rubbing shoulders with you there is a question that i that want to ask you i've often asked myself this question but i'd like to ask it of you because you've been out there in the work for such a long time that you understand it at every level you understand that from the family you understand it from the individual you understand it from the community at large what impact it's having so with that you also understand the kind of thing or things if you will that need to be done to effect the change in our community if you were world globally or if you want to just change the area i don't know where you're going to go with your response but one change that you think would shift the paradigm on the crisis that we see in incarceration around homelessness around substance abuse around folks who come back who need support and are not getting it what do you think that would be in as the dr jasper lowry change of the world  i have and i don't normally chew my horn very often but in my arena and my environment i have the power and i have the power to let you in have the power let you out even though i don't ever come with you but having the power to inject my culture with the ingredients meaning i'm heard i'm present and we're demonstrating to churn around how they're doing black business today and culturalism just that power to him to inject my culture alone would change the  whole dynamics of the world or wherever we are at if we're able to grasp this type of system that's fully self contained so let me make sure i'm hearing you i'm hearing you changing the world would be if we could all hear and had the opportunity to not only here but digest what you know and how you operate that that could literally change and shift the paradigm on the crisis for deaf and for my culture i i often think that it what's important and crucial force is getting everybody involved yeah how do you what do you think in terms of you know there are not enough workers in this in this in this work that we do there not enough people who understand it be well who understand it to the point of getting involved in the world and understand it at a talking raval at an intellectual level but what do you perceive is a way for us to get more people involved in the work that is so important so so deep into our communities to shift it to get it from being just talk and writing action and keep them i'm not really into name dropping but i like to mention a few folks and did create some things that i worked with even though i didn't get the grants and i talked about they did find one of the agencies i work closely with and i sell to communities and they had what we had is a mental health anti stigma campaign which enabled us to bring mental health awareness to the black community starting with the churches and i think i have ten anchor site churches in which thirteen to fourteen were signed up and we were able to teach the church and make them aware of people coming into their sanctuaries with mental health issues and families that may have and have need that didn't understand how to get services for their loved ones and that thing it really took off i just don't think they put enough behind it i mean here we all were the first african american faith based license clinic ever in the state of california sitting on twenty six in san pablo when we have a mental health anti stigma campaign when it was that big and what i'm hearing you say is when people know what needs to be done often they will do it yes but we're running out of time believe it or not and one of the things that i want to make sure we get out to our viewers is to know how they can get in touch with you if they want to volunteer here they want to be supportive if they want to have you come and speak and change that on buttons and stuff because everything we do from california covered right now everything's there for them to be able to look at well thank you so much dr lowery it's great to have even the garden in this studio at love for you to come back and give us an update on what's happening in your rojas community services and as always we're going to leave you now this is doris manned by men signing up for stop the madness practical ways to influence the incarceration crisis thank you for joining u