House managers
FOCUS currently operates two re-entry houses, one on the East side of Indianapolis and one in Evansville. The houses are both run by people directly impacted by the prison system.
Queen Lewis, Evansville Director & House Manager
Not native to Evansville, but a Hoosier nonetheless. Born in Gary, Indiana, Queen brought her children, 3 sons and 1 daughter to Evansville, Indiana over 20 years ago in search of a new beginning and peaceful environment to raise her children. Up until recently, she has always been active in the community, behind the scenes, by rounding up the adolescents that were earmarked as lost causes. She kept them busy by writing plays, making costumes for those plays, organizing social gathering to keep them off the street, taking small trips to introduce them to cultured events and places.
Queen’s first son has been incarcerated for about 4 years. Her second son locked up for about 3 years. Youngest son has been gone for a little over two years. [As of 2021]
After going through cycles of depression, anxiety, anger, and hopelessness, Queen was introduced to IDOC Watch and FOCUS Initiatives as a group of people that could be a support group on the "outside" while her sons were locked up.
She says, “The introduction has educated me, as well as supported me in solid ways that helped me through my particular struggles as a direct reaction to my loved ones being incarcerated.
Realizing, through first hand experiences, the need for safe, resourceful housing and an opportunity to work in a capacity the can be a resource to its community, I clearly felt passion for their vision for the re-entry program.”
Jauston Huerta, Indianapolis Director & House Manager
Mr. Huerta grew up in Baton Rouge, LA until his adolescent years, and then as a teenager he was thrown between the slums of Tijuana, Mexico and Gary, IN. Difficult conditions in a stressful environment made it easier to fall into the common traps of an urban community. Mr. Huerta made his living as a drug dealer for over 25 years.
After approximately 14 years of incarceration off and on in facilities across the country, Mr. Huerta has emerged from this dark period of his life with a new sense of purpose and direction. He has joined FOCUS Initiatives and been supported with housing, resources, information, and encouragement at every turn. That’s why he has joined the organization and is serving as a House Manager.
Mr. Huerta is two years removed from being incarcerated and is thriving like never before. In addition to working with FOCUS, he works as a warehouse team-lead, and is focusing on his passion, a cartoon project on YouTube called The Real Cindy Lou.
Inside Leadership
Abu Faheem Shabazz, Khalfani Malik Khaldun & Angaza Iman Bahar are Currently Incarcerated in Indiana. Anastazia Schmid was Recently Released on Parole.
Their leadership and foresight brought FOCUS Initiatives Into Existence.
Faheem Shabazz
Faheem was released on parole in January 2018 after 18 years of incarceration. For the next four months, Faheem was on house arrest, struggling to find work, pay for rent and other basic necessities, while complying with the strict terms of his parole. In January 2019, he was arrested on a parole violation. His parole officer issued the warrant for his arrest because he missed an appointment and failed to finish a substance abuse course, as well as several alleged violations that were later dropped as false.
He is now back in IDOC custody and faces the possibility of another 7 years in prison, because the parole board has made his possible release contingent upon not being written up on conduct reports. However, conduct reports are completely arbitrary, determined by the whims of correctional officers. His situation and story illustrate why FOCUS Initiatives is such a necessary project.
This interview below was recorded in the spring of 2018, when he was trying to raise some money to pay off the debt he owed to the work release center. As part of his house arrest terms, Faheem was forced to pay $15/day, with a $60 late fee applied if he wasn't caught up by the end of each month. Ultimately, Faheem’s five months of house arrest cost over $2000.
Anastazia Schmid
Anastazia Schmid spent nearly 18 years behind bars for killing her abusive partner, Tony Heathcote. For three and a half years, Tony subjected Ana and her loved ones to pervasive physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. This abuse often took place in full view of others, including acquaintances, family, and law enforcement officers.
In 2001, Ana was informed for the first time that Tony had sexually abused her 6-year-old daughter. She committed her crime two days later, in a dissociative state. She was arrested and charged with seven counts, including murder.
While detained in county jail, Ana suffered physical abuse by police and was held in severely overcrowded cells. In these conditions, Ana’s mental state worsened. She was found incompetent to stand trial, and was transferred to the Evansville State Hospital. There, Ana was prescribed increasingly stronger and more complex doses of psychotropic medications.
Ana also experienced delusions and paranoia. “The nightmares were hellish. At times I was convinced my partner was hiding somewhere in the jail stalking me, waiting for the opportune time to attack me again.” She would later learn that, when prescribed in those dosages and combinations, psychotropic medications can worsen symptoms of psychosis.
Despite these symptoms, Ana was re-evaluated and found competent to stand trial. During her 10 months of pretrial detention, her mental health deteriorated further, culminating in an emergency return to the hospital just two weeks before trial. Ana would continue to experience delusions and paranoia throughout the 6-day proceeding. She would only understand what had occurred many years later, including the implications of her attorneys’ choice of the usually unsuccessful insanity defense and the extent to which the history surrounding her crime was suppressed. She would later learn that prosecutors successfully moved to exclude evidence of prior bad acts by her abusive partner, and that her own attorney had moved to exclude evidence of her partner’s sexual abuse of her daughter. This was done at the request of Ana’s mother, who paid for her defense, and wished to avoid this disclosure in court.
Ana was found “guilty, but mentally ill” on all counts. She was sentenced to 55 years in the Department of Corrections, with a 25-year minimum, and 5 years on parole.
After struggling for years, Ana was able to get clean and understand the situation she was in. She became a jailhouse lawyer, helping other incarcerated women understand their legal situation and take legal action, as well as a yoga instructor and mentor to many incarcerated women. In February 2019, she won an appeal on her conviction in federal court, and she was released in September. Ana was in touch with people working on FOCUS while incarcerated, and now that she’s out she is consulting with and advising the organization. Ana is also a member of the Abolition Journal collective and another Indianapolis-based organization working to establish re-entry support for formerly incarcerated people, Constructing Our Future. Now that she is out, her main focus is developing networks and infrastructure to support and protect women and girls who are impacted by the carceral system. You can read more about Ana’s case and story, and her own writing, at these links:
Khalfani Malik Khaldun
In 1987 I was a teenager. After being arrested, I had no idea that my journey in the Indiana court system on my first offense would end up taking me away from my family, friends, and my children for 25 years, serving 12 ½. For years, I would hear conversations about the system being broken. For a long time, I agreed. Now, having been on the inside for 32 years, forced to endure an additional trumped-up murder charge inside these walls, given 60 new years, fighting for my vindication, and my long-awaited freedom - I disagree. The system isn’t broken. It is operating as it was designed and created.
My experience with this system is clear, the separation and disconnection from society is like I went through a social death. We are slowly forgotten and abandoned. People I used to call, my calls are accepted here and there. My letters and mail was 10-15 letters a day, now I’m lucky to get one a week. For years I received visits every 14 days for like 10 years straight. Now I’m lucky to get a visit. This is the social death we all will experience.
Why We can Benefit from a Multipurpose Indiana Re-entry Program
Prisoners like myself who have spent practically our whole lives in prison have no resources and most of our family members who would be there for us have died. We will need a safety net like a Re-entry program that is stabilized enough to meet all of my/our needs. Prison life subjects us to a lot of mentally oppressive conditions. So a lot of prisoners like myself, and others, can really benefit from counseling and therapy.
A Re-entry program that is training and empowering us with jobs is what we need. I’m going to need clothes, transportation, a phone, an apartment, etc. The Indiana Department of Corrections claims to have attempted to meet the needs of those of us in its custody. I can say that they have failed terribly. I want to be a part of any program that is committed to my successful transition back out into the world. I support it 100% if they are wanting to help us reconnect with our families.
Indiana Recidivism Rate
We realize that a lot of blame falls on us for re-offending and returning to prison for violating probation or parole or committing a new crime. We equally have to admit that the root cause of the consistently high return to prison lies in an ineffective Indiana Department of Corrections re-entry program that’s failing its prisoners. That program prepares us to fail. So, if I want to succeed and make it in society and not come back, I have to go beyond the State’s program and embrace the safety net / alternative available beyond these walls. The State of Indiana could benefit from a quality re-entry program that plays a hands-on approach to saving us from falling back into our old ways. So many of us have lost our close family members. We will need people to have our back when things get rough.
You can read Brother Khalfani’s writings and listen to interviews with him at sfbayview.com, or idocwatch.org/blog-1
Angaza Iman Bahar
I strongly believe that the re-entry project that we are trying to create with FOCUS Initiatives is the best possible option for someone like me, who has spent so many years in prison and wants to return to my community to contribute to its uplifting. The fact that unlike most other re-entry programs, this one requires that all participants be active in the community in a way that brings them and that community closer together is a key element to produce successful re-entry.
When I get out of prison after serving 25+ years I will be returning to a society that I have little understanding of with nothing more then a set of state-issued clothing and a debit card with $75 on it. This is all the state is required to provide those like me. The re-entry project gives me the necessary safety net needed to ease my way back into life out there. In the process it also gives me the opportunity to show my community that i stand with them and is willing to dedicate my time and energy towards working to make our environment a better and safer place to live.
Such an opportunity, many of us need and that is why this project is so important, it gives those society has written off and forgotten a second chance.
You can read Angaza’s writings and listen to speeches he’s given at idocwatch.org/blog-1 and idocwatch.org/study-session.
Coordination
Strategic Planning Director
Nicholas Greven is the Strategic Planning Director. This is a volunteer role that involves coordinating fundraising, outreach, and communication within the organization. The goal of this position is to develop the organization’s resources and capacity to a point that it is self sustaining and fully directed by formerly incarcerated people and people with incarcerated loved ones.
Mr. Greven is a long-time community organizer and a founder of FOCUS Initiatives, who helped facilitate getting the project off the ground. He has been involved in advocacy around prisoners’ rights and decarceration for nearly a decade.