Juan, once homeless and addicted to heroin, was arrested when he broke into a warehouse. “It was empty, I just needed a place to sleep,” Juan said.
The police found drugs on Juan, and charged him for possession, which was prosecuted as a felony. The arrest was not his first and he went to prison on what was originally a multiyear sentence. Juan said he had been in and out of prison since 1983.
“I became a real bad drug addict,” he said. “I burned every bridge in my family.”
After the 2014 passage of California’s Proposition 47, however, Juan was eligible for reduction of his conviction from a felony to a misdemeanor, and he was released earlier this year.
(Prop. 47 is the state initiative that reduced six nonserious felonies to misdemeanors.)
When he got out, Juan received little or no re-entry assistance and was fearful he’d slip back into his addiction. “I knew I needed more help,” he said. He’d heard about a drug rehab center called theAmity Foundation, and managed to snag a spot in their program.
[For more of this story, written by Taylor Walker, go to http://jjie.org/californias-ju...xt-on-agenda/151511/]
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