This Housing Center Provides Sanctuary for Starting Over

There are two things that men leaving the prison system in New Orleans most commonly request from The First 72+, a nonprofit that helps the formerly incarcerated adjust to life on the outside. The first is enough privacy to wake up and not make eye contact with another man.

The second is a bubble bath.

Those are two things that "we made central to the design of the house," says Kelly Orians, who directs the Decarceration and Community Reentry Clinic at the University of Virginia’s law school and is a founder of The First 72+. In creating the Ben Smith Welcome Home Center, The First 72+ took its cues directly from the men it intended to serve. And, indeed, the home is equipped with full baths, complete with tubs.

Based on his previous experience as a resident, First 72+ reentry court case manager Troy Delone has an idea of the other comforts that future residents have to look forward to. "The bed, just in and of itself—having a soft mattress with those nice, solid clean sheets that were so comfortable," says Delone, who spent 16 years in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, the maximum security prison commonly known as Angola, named for the former plantation it occupies and Portuguese colony in Africa from which enslaved people who once worked there came. "It just gives you a peaceful vibe."