A little more than a year ago, U.C. Davis was looking for a way to climb back into society.Recently released from the penitentiary, he wanted to find a way to support himself and his children. But without a job or work skills, he didn’t know where to start.
That’s when he found Deacon Abrom Salley and Zacchaeus House. Now Salley claims Davis as a success story for his fledgling project, which he describes as a transitional “safe house” for men who want to get their lives back on track.
The house is neither a treatment center, nor a halfway house for men being released from prison. It’s not a shelter for men who just want a hot meal and a place to sleep.
Rather, Salley said, it is a house of evangelization, and a home for men who want to stabilize their lives and find Christ.
Davis, 41, works for Terrabreeze Communications and Security, a suburban firm that installs and maintains everything from intercom to video surveillance systems. He has his own apartment in Chicago and is engaged to be married.
He credits the change to Zacchaeus House and Salley.
“All my life, I wanted to get things in track, but I just couldn’t do it,” he said. “He put the time in and really encouraged me.”But the path from the front door of Zacchaeus House to independence wasn’t clear of obstacles.
When Salley opened the doors in a former convent in the Roseland neighborhood last year, he had the support of Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Perry and the help of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, the School Sisters of Notre Dame and many members of the diaconate community. He began taking in a few residents at a time, offering them spiritual direction and requiring them to attend religious services and help do household chores. Then he started preparing them to join the working world, getting physical and dental exams and driver’s licenses, and opening bank accounts.
But once they were ready to work, he hit a brick wall.
“There just weren’t any jobs,” he said. “Especially not down in Roseland.”
At least not jobs that paid a living wage, that would allow the men to become independent. And not for men who had spotty employment histories, or, like Davis, had served time in the correctional system.
That’s when Dave Brezinski, co-owner of Terrabreeze and deacon candidate from St. John the Evangelist Parish, got involved. Brezinski and fellow parishioner Brian Harrington, a general contractor, had chaired the building committee for the parish’s new church, which was dedicated in 2002. But under the expanded worship space sat 8,000 square feet of unfinished basement. That area was to become office space, but the parish ran out of money for that part of the project.
Brezinski and Harrington thought they could do the project at a good price, and use the opportunity to teach Zacchaeus House residents some building skills, or at least expose them to the different trades involved in construction work. And they thought they could do it for a price the parish could afford: somewhere in the range of $180,000, the estimate value of the tract house across the street from the church where the offices were located.
The two set to work developing a proposal, keeping the cost down by using Harrington’s son’s drafting class at Streamwood High School to draw up the plans. Chicago architecture firm Benedetto and Associates agreed to supervise their work before approving the plan, a $6,000 in-kind donation. Other subcontractors also discounted their prices and agreed to work with the Zacchaeus House residents, who were hired as interns on the project.“Each contractor threw in about $5,000,” Harrington said. “That’s how we got it down to what Father (Robert Tonelli) needed.”
Tonelli, St. John the Evangelist’s pastor, took it as a sign from God when everything came together, including the approval of Tom Brennan, the archdiocese’s director of finance. Brennan told the two they could move ahead, but they had to solicit bids for the project before getting the contract. They did, and their package came in 40 percent lower than the others.
The project was substantially complete in about 10 weeks. It will be dedicated Oct. 10 by Bishop Perry and Bishop Jerry Listecki, who serves the suburban area in Vicariate I where the parish is located.
“It went more smoothly than any construction I’ve been involved with,” said Tonelli, who likened it to a modern, faith-based equivalent of the New Deal’s Work Progress Administration.
After watching the project move forward, Brezinski as so impressed that he hired Davis and Garcia Reed, another of the Zacchaeus House interns. They make up nearly a third of his staff of seven. Of the four Zacchaeus House residents who worked on the project, three finished and one left the program. Brezinski and Harrington said the 75 percent success rate exceeded expectations.“I hope we get to the point where the trades are fighting over the guys,” Brezinski said.
He and Harrington also want to bring the model to other building projects within the archdiocese, he said, helping other parishes grow and offering training and perhaps permanent job opportunities to more men.
Fred Willis, 33,another Zacchaeus House resident, wanted to work on the project, but found employment on his own before it started. Willis started by working as a valet, parking cars. Over time, he took on a second job working for a janitorial service that had a contract for the building where he worked. Then he managed to buy his own JaniKing franchise, and provides services to a list of nine or 10 clients and has one employee.
“They say that’s pretty good for your first six months,” he said.
Willis was one of the first residents at Zacchaeus House and is one of 12 who completed the program in its first year. Three residents live there now, and Salley has six more men on the waiting list.
While Willis and Garcia are success stories, Salley said there are still issues to work out. The biggest problem for the men working in Streamwood was transportation, he said. The program is always looking for donations of reliable vehicles.
Then there was the job he had of making sure everyone was up and out the door every day, motivated to go to work.
“You have to understand, some of these guys, they’ve never worked a full day before,” he said. “They were afraid of it. They were afraid of the responsibility.”
Then Salley cracked a smile as Davis shows off his work.
“You just have to keep at it,” he said. “And keep praying.”