Program and Services
What is Project COPE?
COPE accepts men and women who have served long prison terms for violent crimes and whose family relationships are strained or limited. Before their release, they meet with a team from a faith congregation or other group that has read their application and is willing to work with them. At that meeting, a one-year partnership is formed. The team offers intensive personal support aimed at helping the person build a new life. In return, the ex-offender gives them the chance to learn from someone with very different life experiences from their own.
COPE owns three apartment buildings, with ten transitional housing units. Most partners stay in one of our apartments until they have a job and are able to afford their own place. Our housing is available for up to eight months. Within the first two months, the person is expected to get a job and begin paying program fees, on a sliding scale. After the first month of work, the person pays 15% of their income; the second month, 25%; thereafter, 35%, but never more than $250. Residents also take part in a savings plan.
At the end of the eight months, the resident moves to independent housing. The team is still intact and helps furnish the apartment; they also stay in touch during the next few months, until the partnership officially ends. Often, teams remain friendly with their partners even after the end of the partnership–and sometimes partners even become team members themselves.
At the beginning of the partnership, ex-offenders make a covenant with their team, defining their goals and a path to achieving them. They also agree to regular phone calls and meetings. Those residing in COPE housing sign a housing contract. They meet one evening a month, share barbeque and other meals and attend a COPE pot luck and graduation every four months.
Teams attend an initial three-hour workshop, and they are offered in-service workshops every three months. Every four months, there is a pot luck, when those who have completed their year in COPE graduate from the program. This is an opportunity for teams to meet each other and talk informally about their work.
What Other Services Do We Provide?
COPE partners with people who have home plans with family, as well as those in our transitional housing. Working together, COPE and the teams provide money and transportation to get a birth certificate, state ID and Social Security card, along with food and clothing. While COPE team members usually are not licensed counselors, they offer emotional support, encouragement, preparation for job interviews, and social relationships, teaching their partners what “normal” looks like. In particular, teams provide support for decision-making and long-range planning, helping their partners evaluate the execution.
Further, COPE staff and teams teach budgeting, saving, housekeeping, cooking, use of appliances, St. Louis geography, bus routes and map-reading. Our monthly residents’ meeting uses Seeking Safety by Professor Lisa Najavits for people with addictions and post-traumatic stress disorder. Staff members test for drugs.
Staff and teams sometimes meet with employers. These meetings have proved useful in helping the partner understand job requirements and helping the employer better understand the commitment that the COPE partner brings to the job.
About five months after release from prison, almost all ex-offenders face significant depression. Usually this is situational depression, because the experience of freedom does not match the hopes one had in prison. At that point, those with addictions are particularly vulnerable to alcohol and drugs. But safe housing, team support and a job can help keep the person stable.
