Oakland Halfway House is a transitional living institution for former inmates located in Oakland, California. This post is a brief recount of my stay there and how to survive your stay.
Oakland Halfway House is a co-ed residency in which the women are the minority and the men are the majority. The women stayed in about one or two bedrooms, while the men were housed in the rest of the rooms. I initially thought that this halfway house was full of former federal inmates, but I was wrong, there were former state inmates too.
Oakland Halfway House is a strict residency. The stick to their handbook and never allow residents to break rules. When a rule is broken there is hardly any forgiveness, even for minor issues. I ran into trouble twice the first week I was there. They offered no leniency for someone trying to assimilate into their facility. My first mistake was getting lost in the Bay area. This caused me to be late. I feel this is a minor issue for someone that doesn’t know their way around. If they were going to be so strict, they should have offered a guide or at least a map! My second offense happened because I was late again. However, this time I was just a few minutes late, but I still got busted. Fortunately for me, the managers never spoke to me about either incident until after three days. According to their rules, they cannot discipline me after three days.
I’ll talk more about this halfway house in later blogs, but for the most part here’s what you need to do to stay out of trouble at Oakland Halfway House.
- Lay low and avoid other people’s business like the plague
- Work as much as possible or go to school or volunteer
- Don’t piss off the staff
- Don’t ask or expect favors from anyone
- Get a smartphone. They are allowed after they approve the phone. (That’s the only real way to get a job in the city, if you’re not living in the Bay.)
Here is the complete handbook to the Oakland Federal Halfway house.
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