A Transition Home for Ex Offenders as President Trumps Prison Reform Bill Goes into Effect in 2020
Several months ago God placed a burden on my heart to launch a Transition Home for Ex offenders, as I was told about ex-offenders that I knew, that would soon be getting out of prison in 2020, as a part of the Presidents Prison reform bill signed in December of 2018. But because they had no homes, or no where to go, they were not looking forward to getting out. A vision I had been given several years earlier was reignited in my heart - a start-up Re-Entry Transitioning Service registered with the State of Ohio as a Limited Liability Corporation, to provide an array of supportive services to ex-offenders, individuals in recovery, and the homeless who are attempting to transition back into society.
President Trumps Prison Reform Bill Goes into Effect in 2020
In 2019 President Donald Trump signed the First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill aimed at reducing recidivism and refining sentencing laws and harsh penalties.
The bill expands in-prison and post-release employment programming, includes components related to alternatives to prison for low-risk prisoners such as home confinement, prohibits restraints on pregnant prisoners, and mandates evidence-based treatment for opioid and heroin abuse, among others.
The bill revises the Controlled Substances Act’s harsh drug penalties, including a lowering of the “three strikes” rule for drug felons that had sent them to life in prison, now down to 25 years, and it changes the two or more felonies within the rule from any “felony drug offense” to “a serious drug felony or serious violent felony,” defined in the text of the bill.
“The First Step Act will help prepare inmates to successfully rejoin society and enact commonsense sentencing reforms to make our justice system fairer for all Americans,”
At the end of 2019 as the bill was getting ready to take effect in 2020, I was at a Church service in my city and a gentleman came up to me and began sharing that he had just come back from ministering at a prison in Ohio. And he shared with me that as he was ministering in the prison and praying for the young men, many of the young men began calling my name out to him, asking him; "Do you know Elder Mathis??" He told them, Yes. And they then asked. Does Elder Mathis still have the ministry of Hope for Columbus operating in the inner-cities of Columbus?
The Urban Ministry of Hope for Columbus
This was a ministry initiative launched while I was on staff at World Harvest Church, as director of Evangelism and Outreach. I established and operated their urban ministry, called Metro Harvest Church. Metro Harvest was an outreach church comprised of four satellite community centers on each side of town, called Hope Centers from 2003 - 2009.
These Hope Centers were established to minister to thousands in the urban centers of Columbus Ohio through Tent revival services, mass feeding distribution, and social and civic evangelism, through job fairs, health fairs, and economic empowerment classes.
Over a 5 year period over 10,000 people were ministered to the gospel of Jesus Christ and discipled from the government welfare system in the government projects, many of them entering the work force and community engagement through this urban outreach church.
We Have No Place to Go once were Released from Prison
This gentleman, that had just come back from ministering at the prisons, began to relay to me that they had expressed to him that they would be getting out of prison in 2020 as a part of President Trumps Prison Reform Bill, and they didn't have a place to go. They have no homes to go to, and they remembered the outreaches and support help we offered while I was on staff at World Harvest Church.
They wanted to know, is Elder Mathis (the name they knew me as, as one of the church Elders) still in the inner-city feeding, clothing, housing and helping our neighborhoods as he did from 2003 to 2009 in Columbus Ohio?
My Urban vision for 2020 AWAKENED
My Heart was burdened, as my vision was immediately awakened, as I thought about those young men that I had ministered to and discipled in the early part of the 21st century, now in prison. We had the opportunity during those years to see these young people saved from gang violence, drug addiction, human trafficking and discipled during those years through the 4 satellite centers in the projects, we called Hope Centers.
My family and I had moved to Kansas City in 2009 to the International house of Prayer, a community that exists to partner in the Great Commission by advancing 24/7 prayer and proclaiming the beauty of Jesus and His glorious return. We moved there to prepare to add a 24/7 prayer and worship dimension to cover these evangelism outreaches in the inner-city. We were there for 3 years and moved back in 2013 to relaunch Hope for Columbus, with an around the clock prayer and worship dimension added to it.
In the summer of August 2015 Hope for Columbus re-launched this vision by conducting 10 days of 24hr prayer, worship and evangelism at a church called Shiloh Christian Center in Downtown Columbus, in the center of the city.
In 2016 I was invited to speak at the Republican National Convention on social justice in the Urban communities from a biblical context. I subsequently presented a plan to both candidates for the 2016 Presidency, to transform at-risk communities, called "The New Deal to the African-American Urban Poor," from my book, "Building Cities of Refuge - How to Transform At-risk communities through the ministry of prayer, racial Reconciliation and social action, which the 2016 Republican Presidential Candidate, Donald Trump, used in a speech a month before he was elected President of the United States. I was later invited to the White House in May of 2017.
The Offer of a Transition Home
Two weeks after talking with this prison minister, someone approached me out of the clear blue and told me about an offer that was presented to them to purchase a transition home to house ex-offenders, and asked me if I was interested in partnering together to purchase this transition home. I asked why she asked me, and she said, that she was just called about a 7 bedroom transition home that could house 15 people in downtown Columbus, that had been sitting vacant for almost two years, and she remembered my vision from the early 21st century. They told her that the previous agency that had operated this home had lost their funding, and so they no longer could sustain the home.
They called this person because they knew it was in her heart, and she called me because she knew that this had been a part of the vision of Hope for Columbus, as they asked her if she knew anyone that had a vision for a transition home. And she said YES!
I believe this is God's Answer to this Societal ill in our Urban Centers
I believe this was God responding to the cry of those that will be released from the prison system in 2020, with no where to go and no place to call home, while at the same time releasing a 2020 vision focus for Hope for Columbus, the ministry I oversee in Columbus Ohio, connecting societies ills with Christs' solutions in our world.
Mat 25:34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
Mat 25:35 For I was an hungry, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Mat 25:36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Lets Partner
President Trumps Prison Reform Bill was signed into Law in 2018, as he promised in 2016, to help reform the injustices committed against the poor and the urban communities of our inner cities. And he's keeping His promise.
Now we that are from these regions, that have cried foul for the many injustices that have been committed in our communities, and those that are for limited government, and are against the welfare state and government hand outs, must join together and step up to do our part to give these ex-offenders a place to call home, to be prepared to transition back into the community to be a productive part of society. Only those changed by Christ can reform those that have been ravaged by the trials and tragedies of life
Please Pray about helping us cover the expenses of this re-entry transition discipleship home for ex-offenders coming out in 2020
To give by check, Make Checks Payable to:
Hope for Columbus
1900 Polaris Parkway Suite 450
Columbus Ohio 43240
Your partner support in this Re-entry Transition home will be used by God to transform lives in our city of Columbus Ohio.
Our story has been in the heart of God for all time, but now is the day in which we are watching it unfold.
I’m blessed to play a part in the Lord’s purposes for the release of a reformation in our urban centers throughout the nation and world.
My heart burns as I invite you to partner in this vision the Lord has given me: to help us build a community of transformation and reformation, including, a re-entry home for ex-offenders, a 24/7 sanctuary of worship with intercession, ministering before the Lord, and to equip people in our region to live overflowing lives of passion for Jesus and compassion for people.
Each gift furthers our mission and is sown directly into the ministries and projects that are the expression of it. To Donate click the link.
Hope for Columbus Vision
Hope for Columbus is a vision and strategy to call the body of Christ in our city to citywide solemn assemblies of prayer, worship and evangelism. It is a vision to ignite the fires of revival and release the Christ within the Hope of Glory, to transform our city and region for God. These regional Solemn assemblies will consist of 24/7 worship, prayer and evangelism in a centralized location and subsequent locations throughout the city for open heavens over the region to release city-wide transformation.
Our Strategy is to target 4 areas within the city as the foundation for revival in our city, to raise up 24/7 Houses of Prayer and Worship Missions bases in our city to begin restoring within these communities the Love for God and our neighbor.
Coming Soon! The New Home of Hope for Columbus
Through Prayer and the discipleship ministry of Jesus Christ we will invade the communities of this city, rebuilding the old waste places and raising up the foundations of many generations, giving hope for the hopeless, and help for the helpless, Putting the Neighbor back in the Hood.
To Donate click the link. Through your gifts you are helping establish a home that will be the foundation for bringing Hope to the Hopeless and help to the helpless, evangelizing the lost, healing the sick, serving the poor, and training believers of all ages to prepare cities for the coming Kingdom of God.
To give by check, Make Checks Payable to
Hope for Columbus
1900 Polaris Parkway Suite 450
Columbus Ohio 43240
