Recovery House assists local homeless, alcoholics

Non-profit house helps residents through recovery, job hunt using 6-month program

By: Casey Cheney

Posted: 4/23/09

Though it's in a residential area on the corner of Waldron and Manning streets, the building doesn't fit in with the surrounding houses. There's no swing set, no fence and nothing to fence in.

The New Way Recovery House doesn't look like much, but for its 10 residents, it's home. The non-profit houses homeless residents and sponsors Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

"It helps them get back into the community if they aren't working," said Dale Mason, who founded New Way with his wife two years ago.

He said he and his wife are "in recovery," both having completed the AA program in the past. He's been sober for 20 years now. The date is inscribed next to his name on a cinderblock wall inside the house, amongst myriad other names and "sobriety dates."

Outside, the word "truth" is scrawled in black spray-paint across the faded wood-panel exterior, perhaps reflecting the journey of those within. Cigarette butts litter the small cement porch where most homes would have a welcome mat.

Taped to the windowpane of the front door is a sheet of paper bearing a triangle inside a circle, the symbol of Alcoholics Anonymous. Beneath are listed the times of the AA meetings held there.

Mason said he spent 17 of his last 20 sober years visiting the Hope House, a rehab center in Jonesville, Mich. But some internal conflicts occurred at the Hope House about three years ago, Mason said, and he and his wife decided not to return.

Instead, Mason began looking for a place in Hillsdale where he could hold AA meetings. He said he noticed a place for lease on Manning Street. After leasing the place for a couple of months, he decided to purchase the house and form its current structure.

Mason said New Way has housed approximately 60 or 70 people in the two years it's been around. They work with the courts and counselors.

Since the Hope House closes soon, they have begun referring people to New Way. But some people simply walk in looking for help.

"We don't just take any homeless person," Mason said. "They have to have a drug and alcohol problem."

Mason said a desire to be sober is enough to gain entrance at New Way.

The house admitted a homeless man from Ann Arbor. Mason said the freezing Michigan weather made the man's sleeping bag too cold and he could no longer move his legs.

"We were the only ones who would take someone without money," he said.

He said most of the residents come from somewhere other than Hillsdale.

"A lot of times they can't go back to where they came from," he said, and returning to a familiar environment often leads to a return to familiar habits.

"So they come to a place like this in the middle of nowhere."

New Way has a six-month program based on AA's 12 steps. Though Mason and his staff encourage the residents to remain for the entire six months, they are not required to stay.

"They start to feel better and decide they want to go out on their own," he said about those who leave before the six months are up. He added that it's common for those who don't complete the program to fall back into alcoholism.

He said because New Way is a non-profit organization, the Masons pay for whatever costs they can't cover with the residents' rent payments, though occasionally they receive a donation. Eventually, Mason said, he'd like to see the place pay for itself.

In its two years of existence, Mason said he's proud of what's been accomplished.

"Evidently it's working," he said. Some of the people who stayed there when New Way had just begun are still sober, and if they help one person stay sober, it's worth it, he said.

Karen Reynolds, a resident of New Way since December 2008, is one of the many alcoholics New Way has helped reach sobriety. She said she would continue to live there if it weren't for her 8-year-old daughter, Elizabeth.

Reynolds has dealt with alcoholism for years: She was first introduced to AA in 1999. But for the first time, she said she is actually succeeding. Three times she left her alcoholism behind, and three times she relapsed, each relapse harder than the first.

"I tried living in my own world," she said, going back to the same environment with the same temptations. "There was always an excuse to drink, to relax."

Friends and family would invite her to have a couple beers with them, not realizing she was different from them. She was an alcoholic.

"I wanted to drink," she said. "I wanted to stay sober. I wanted to die."

Nothing she did helped until she came to New Way. She needed a "controlled, structured, sober environment."

"Nothing has been able to stop an alcoholic from drinking except for interaction with another alcoholic," she said.

This interaction with the other alcoholics at New Way has changed her life. When she came to New Way, she thought she would spend the rest of her life as an alcoholic. Yet in two months, she will be promoted to a staff member.

"[It] makes you feel useful," she said. "Makes you feel like you've got a purpose."

Mason refuses credit for the house's success.

"God's in charge, not us," he said. "We're just following directions."