Criminalized Survivors of Domestic Violence and Human Trafficking Gather to Celebrate Passover Themes of Liberation, Resilience and Triumph

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, April 11, 2023 – Twenty-five women residents, staff and supporters of the Five Keys Home Free community recently gathered to share a Passover Seder and dinner, affirming they are strong and resilient people and to share their reality — their own tyranny and freedom — as women unjustly sentenced to long term prison sentences including Life Without the Possibility of Parole, life in prison. Now free and living in California’s first transitional residential facility for criminalized survivors of domestic violence, they celebrate freedom and their second chance at life.

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Sunny Schwartz, Debby Hamolsky, Kathryn Spiak, Karen Levine, Ellen Friedman, and Laura Troiani

The meal was inspired by the Passover’s spiritual message that there is the potential to break out of the enslavements of the past and to evolve with redemption, compassion and triumph.

Tiffany Holmes, Delia Ginorio, Delia Mendoza, Jennifer Trayers, Kathryn Spiak, Chalia Broudes, Debby Hamolsky, Ellen Friedman, Tammy Johnson, Demien Johnson, Susan Bustamante, Laura Troiani

“Like the Jews who were freed from slavery, tonight we celebrate your liberation from tyranny and patriarchy and are so honored and happy to be here with you,” said Karen Levine, a social justice activist, long time staff of the SF Sheriff’s Department and the Veteran’s Administration. “Mitzrayim which means the narrow place is the story of Passover — the leaving of the narrow place of slavery in Egypt, and of suffering. It is understood both literally and through the personal stories of coming to freedom, kind of like a 10 by 8 cell.”  For the women of Home Free, Karen now facilitates WomanAlive, a 52-week violence prevention course for women survivors of violence — a re-education program which helps with intimacy, communicatio skills and violence prevention.

Susan Bustamante, who spent 31 years in prison as an LWOP (lifer) before her sentence was commuted, and other women shared a rich snapshot of honesty about where they have been and where they are now. Like the Israelites liberation from slavery in ancient Egypt, the womens’ lived experiences are tales of faith and community and triumph over adversity.

“Through all the horrific abuse, I found myself hating, which I hated. It was a horrible place to be and a narrow space I didn’t belong … and this led to prison,”said Bustamante. “My healing came gradually and with my sheer will I grew enough to then get commuted, paroled, and become the advocate I am today.” Bustamante was hired by Home Free last year and is now a re-entry coach who also picks up the women

(many in Los Angeles) when they are released from prison and drives them to Home Free.

Home Free was created by Five Keys, a statewide nonprofit that provides education, vocational training, therapeutic programs, and housing for incarcerated people and the newly released. The majority of people at Home Free were originally sentenced to Life in Prison Without Parole as a result of defending their lives against domestic violence abusers. Because of a loophole in the law that has since been corrected through pioneering legislation, the survivors could not have evidence of past abuse included in their trials. The first of its kind in California, the complex of five two-bedroom apartments is the result of years of advocacy by survivors of intimate-partner violence, and organizations working with them.

The seder is just one of the many events, celebrations and gatherings that the Home Free community creates for the survivors living there and their extended community. The evening was filled with abundant homemade, traditional seder foods – from Karpas (parsley) and Baytzah (roasted egg), both symbolizing spring and rebirth to Charoset, to symbolize the mortar that the Israelite slaves used to make bricks. There was also poignant sharing and singing the ancient Hebrew song, Dayenu, a seder tradition that means “it would have been enough for us,” along with laughter and tears.

“It was a sacred evening,” said Sunny Schwartz, founder of Five Keys Home Free, a transitional housing complex on Treasure Island, which creates a vibrant, dignified, and safe home, a place that says “you are worthy.” Sunny invited longtime friends, Debby Hamolsky, Karen Levine, and Ellen Friedman to envision and revise the Haggadah and to help her cook up the meal and brought the seder home to Home Free, creating a parallel celebration of freedom. All the foods bring the story alive including traditional brisket, matzo ball soup with egg noodles, roasted carrots, mashed potatoes with not just a dash but a main ingredient of love.

Gilda Serrano, Ella, Sunny and Lauren Schwartz

From the blue plates and yellow flowers to an orange symbolizing the Jewish LGBTQ community, the table settings also told a powerful story. Dr. Susannah Hershel, the Eli M. Black Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College, initiated the idea of the orange in the 1980s. She shared the custom with her own guests, and it quickly spread to other homes, and so the orange was said to represent the inclusion of women in the Jewish ritual life.

Since 2020, 17 women have lived at Home Free. Four more women are expected this year in the coming months and 100 more women are waiting inside to come Home Free.

About Five Keys

Five Keys was founded in 2003 by the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department as the first
accredited charter high school in the nation to provide diploma programs for adults in county jails. Today Five Keys serves 30,000-plus Californians annually, spanning 14 counties in 25 county jails and over 120 teaching sites. In addition to schools,
Five Keys operates multiple homeless shelters, permanent supportive housing programs, transitional employment programs, reentry programs and housing for women suffering from immense injustice. Five Keys is a second chance employer. Our goal is to restore communities through education and other programs that respond to the students’ and community needs — which in turn creates safer communities. To visit or donate: www.fivekeyshomefree.org.

Media Contact: Sunny Schwartz (415) 819-7070

Delivering dignity to Alameda's unsheltered community

Thursday, March 31, 2022
Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft

We got the money! Last month I reported that Alameda applied for a $12.3 million Homekey grant from California’s Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD). Good news: Our application was successful!

Residents often ask, “What is Alameda doing about homelessness?” These grant funds help answer that question. Alameda will use this money to construct Dignity Village, which includes 46 modular units of transitional supportive housing, and an additional unit for an onsite manager. Up to 61 homeless adults — individuals and couples — will have their own rooms with private bathrooms, and access to on-site “wraparound services.” These services include being connected to medical care, mental health services, and substance abuse treatment, help finding employment, and assistance securing and maintaining permanent housing.

Dignity Village, and similar projects, will also help to significantly reduce homelessness in the Bay Area. That’s because this transitional, or interim, housing is an important element of the All Home Regional Action Plan (RAP) to reduce unsheltered homelessness in the Bay Area by 75 percent by 2024, through creating permanent solutions, not temporary fixes.

Launched in April 2021 by All Home, a non-profit focused on reducing poverty and homelessness, RAP is based on a “1-2-4 framework.” Specifically, for every unit of interim housing, there should be simultaneous investment in two units of permanent housing, and four units of homelessness prevention programs. This formula is designed to provide permanent housing solutions for unsheltered individuals, while preventing others from becoming homeless. Visit allhomeca.org for more information.

Read The Original Article in Alameda Sun

Above and Beyond the Call of Duty: Officers lauded as heroes for coming to the rescue of a 68-year-old formerly incarcerated abuse survivor tasting freedom for the first time in three decades

Recently released after spending 34 years in prison on a wrongful lifetime sentence, Rosie Dyer powered up her new electric wheelchair and set off through the streets of San Francisco to meet friends in Union Square and celebrate her new freedom. That Sunday afternoon, after tooling around the city she remembered fondly from her childhood, the brand-new wheelchair broke down, leaving the 68-year-old stranded. She was just one block from the transition home on Bush Street where she has found safe shelter since Gov. Gavin Newsom granted the freedom she had only dreamed about. 

“I was terrified,” says Dyer, 68, who is a cancer survivor and suffers from congestive heart failure. “I didn’t know what I was going to do.” 

That’s when Dyer, who is just learning to navigate daily life much less modern technology, remembered her cell phone and dialed one of her advocates she had just celebrated with. She’d promised to be there as quickly as possible to push Dyer home. But Dyer warned her: “That’s not going to work. This thing weighs more than 200 pounds so there is no way you can push me up this hill.” 

Fast-forward … while the advocate, Sheila Von Driska was sprinting back across the city, she saw a couple of police officers, explained the complicated situation, and asked them for help. Underscoring their motto to protect and serve, the officers sprang into action to help Dyer. Sergeant James O’Malley and Officer Chris Quiocho from the Northern Station were the first to arrive. But they also quickly realized the steep hill and heavy wheelchair called for a backup team. Officers Simon Hoang and Anthony Quimbo from the Tenderloin Station raced to their aid.

During these times when police officers are rarely told they are valued, Dyer and her advocates, along with city leadership, did not want their compassionate response to care to go unnoticed. 

After hearing of the good deed by the lawmen, Damali Taylor, Vice President of the Police Commission for the City and County of San Francisco Police Department, gave the officers a shoutout at a recent commissioner’s meeting to ensure their exemplary actions did not go unnoticed. 

“This woman is incredible, in a wheelchair and using it for first time, after experiencing so much time in prison, she just wanted to spend some time to see the city,” says Taylor. “It’s an incredible story and shows how we do not do enough to thank the heroes who serve us every day. I want to thank them and shout them out. I want to take my time to thank those officers who helped this woman who has experienced incredible horrible things. They dropped everything they were doing to make her feel special. Thank you.” 

At the commission hearing, Taylor read a letter written by Von Driska thanking the police officers:

“I’m so happy to hear these officers will be commended. Rosie has been through enough in her life — it was poetic. But, I understand these amazing peace officers are also going through quite a bit of injustice, too, due to the ripple effect of what happened in Minneapolis. O’Malley and Quiocho were telling me about the horrible experiences and name-calling they have been enduring because of it … based on the color of the uniforms they wear … not at all who they are, as people, evidenced by yesterday.

“Well, for whatever it is worth … they are my heroes. They stepped up in the absolute most kindest way possible to help me and Rosie with the most unusual request … a broken down brand new electric wheelchair on Jones Street for a woman who had spent 34 years in prison (unjustly) and on one of the very first days she ventured out on her own with her new “wheels” to celebrate six months of freedom with me and you for lunch in Union Square … one block from home … she got stuck. And of all the people in the world … San Francisco’s finest responded with such grace and gentle care. What an escort home!

“Last week Rosie said she was looking forward to an adventure. And what an adventure it was … with superheroes in blue coming to the rescue and the happiest day and ending possible. Thank you to our heroes.”

Using her voice for change

Dyer was one of about 100 abused women serving life or life without parole for killing their abusive husbands or partners.

In 1985, Dyer shot her husband with the same gun he had used to threaten and rape her. When she testified about the abuse, prosecutors used her words as evidence that she had a motive for the killing. After decades, and new laws, Gov. Gavin Newsom commuted Dyer’s sentence. She was released in April.

In addition to binge-watching her favorite book series, Outlander, now available to her on Netflix
(she read the series seven times during her imprisonment), Dyer has been opening up about her experience and about domestic violence to lawmakers, college students and others on ZOOM meetings dedicated to helping others gain a greater understanding of the intricacies of domestic violence. She also meets regularly and pens letters and emails to dozens of victims looking for help and survivors trying to do as she is, navigate their new worlds of freedom. 

In November, Dyer will be among the 12 women who will move into one of a set of two-bedroom apartments on Treasure Island, thanks to a new transitional housing program started by the Five Keys Home Free program dedicated to helping survivors of wrongful convictions transition back in the San Francisco and Los Angeles communities.  

“Rosie is one of the women who has endured unspeakable violence and painfully and unjustly ended up in prison because they were not able to introduce the evidence of the horrific abuse they suffered at the hands of their husbands or partners,” said Sunny Schwartz, founder and board member of Five Keys and Home Free. “We are trying to right a terrible wrong committed against these women.” Schwartz was with Von Driska and Dyer at the Little Skillet Fried Chicken lunch celebration just before the wheelchair breakdown. 

Like Dyer, these are women who killed their abusive partners decades ago and ended up with prison terms for life. That changed in 2012 when a new California law allowed the women to go back to the parole board or court and show evidence they were defending themselves from abuse. 

As a result, women like Dyer are receiving commuted sentences or early parole. Many need a place to call home.

“This is righting a terrible wrong that was committed against these women,” Schwartz said.

Besides rent-free housing, subsidized in part by the City of San Francisco, Five Keys partners with other agencies to help the newly freed women navigate daily life, from using a cell phone to finding
a job.

“God has blessed me, bringing heroes like this into my life,” says Dyer. “Now it is my turn to help others understand the horrors of domestic violence and to reach back to help women who are experiencing it and tell them they can get out. They don’t deserve to live like that.” 

About Five Keys Schools and Programs 

Five Keys Schools and Programs is leading Five Keys Home Free, a program seeking to create residential communities in San Francisco and Los Angeles providing life skills and survivor empowerment programs, as well as training and job placement for convicted survivors of domestic violence whose prison sentences have been commuted. Learn more: https://www.fivekeyshomefree.org/

Teacher inspired to educate prisoners to give them — and their communities — a shot at a better future

““He shared with the class that it was the greatest accomplishment of his life.””

Pictured left to right: Gayle, Woody, Judy, and Oprah

Over the years, Judy Square has been blessed to spend time teaching in the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, Alameda County, CA. Some of her most inspiring conversations have occurred in those rooms. In her conversations with incarcerated individuals, a common thread is that access to adult education offers them a chance to process their past and envision a new future. 

“Many students have told me that no one ever believed in them before, or thought they were smart,” says the San Leandro resident.  But working with Five Keys, they feel someone finally believes in them and is rooting for them.”

During the last 17 years she has taught at the now-closed North County Jail in Oakland and Santa Rita jail, one of the largest jails in the United States. Square says her favorite students to teach are inmates. For 13 years she worked at the jail through the Tri-Valley Regional Occupational Program and the last four through Five Keys.

“I've had a few students who have worked 8-10 hours a day on their schoolwork in their cramped cells, no desk, with stubs of pencils, sometimes with no erasers, pushing through all the obstacles and discomforts to earn their diploma,” she says.  

Of the about 200 students she has taught through Five Keys, one student, Nathan, especially stands out. 

“When I informed him that he earned his High School Equivalency Diploma, he jumped out of his seat and pounded the wall in celebration,” she says. “A deputy rushed in to see what was happening and I had to explain that everything was OK, and that Nathan was simply happy. Then the deputy left, and Nathan shed some tears in full view of his classmates even though that is usually avoided at all costs in jail culture. He shared with the class that it was the greatest accomplishment of his life.” 

For Square, teaching through Five Keys seems to be a natural extension of the ministry she shares with her husband Woody, who is pastor  and children, youth, and family minister at San Leandro Church of Christ.  The couple, who are parents of two young adults, spent six years in Papua New Guinea helping run a church leader training school.

When the pandemic hit the nation in March, Square and her teacher peers and principal were forced to rethink how they would provide service. The team quickly pivoted to salvage education for their students. 

Before the summer break, Square and other teachers typed letters every week, personalizing them for each student and sending them packets of educational materials to work on. An Inmate Services Deputy acted as a courier. He would deliver the letters and packets and bring back completed ones for Square and her fellow teachers to grade and record on the student's record. They also included feedback forms with their letters so the students could write back with questions or updates. 

“However, once things shut down, many students fell off the wagon and stopped completing schoolwork,” she says. “Because all of our students are high school dropouts and have struggled with their educational journey in the past, they really need the structure of classes and face-to-face interaction with teachers to keep them progressing.”

Teaching in COVID-19 has taught Square and other teachers how important the Five Keys mission is and vital to the future of inmates. 

Armed with a “yes-we-can-do-this,” they are planning to be back better than ever in August.  They will continue to deliver the packets of educational materials and keep the education going. 

“I can't wait until I can go back and work with my students in person,” says Square.

 Sidebar 

A Walk in the Woods with Oprah

It’s not every day that campers at the Yosemite National Park run into talk show queen Oprah Winfrey on the trail.

But that’s what happened to Five Keys teacher, Judy Square, and her husband Woody, a minister, about 10 years ago, when they were on a visit to Yosemite.

The seasoned campers bumped into Oprah and her best friend Gayle King when the duo had hitched a pop-up camper to a Chevrolet Tahoe hybrid and hit the road to do a story about Shelton Johnson, a black park ranger who complained that few African-Americans were campers.

Not so, Oprah discovered. Oprah and Gayle ran into the Squares at their first stop in Yosemite and thought it would be fun to fly them out two weeks later to be in the audience when Oprah taped the Yosemite episode. At the end of the show, Oprah called them up on stage and surprised them with the keys to both her camper and the SUV that was used to pull it! Both vehicles were shipped from Chicago to San Leandro, and Judy and Woody still use the camper about three times a year and enjoy riding around town in their "Oprahmobile."