House offers hope for women leaving prison

Daphne Hookano, a former addict once convicted of selling drugs, and the Rev. Sam Cox, a soft-spoken Methodist minister, come from different backgrounds but share the same vision of transforming the lives of women once they leave prison.

They met and hit it off three months ago when Cox decided to donate his former Kailua home as a transition house for women released from the Women’s Community Correctional Center, calling it the Beacon of Hope House, he said in an interview. Hoo­kano was recommended to him as a program facilitator.

Hookano said they envision a place where selected parolees "can become beacons of hope" or shining role models for others leaving prison. Several women at a time will be able to stay up to a year in the house while they "test the waters" of employment and the real world and take part in recovery programs, she said.

"To get to this house, it’s a privilege. You really have got to be working on yourself. You’ve got to have changed behaviors," she said.

Beacon of Hope House is scheduled to open next month in partnership with the Kailua United Methodist Church and the Keolu­mana UMC, in addition to the support of more than a dozen other faith congregations, Cox said.

Cox, a former longtime executive director of Hale Kipa for runaway and homeless youth, said he hopes the program will become a self-sustaining template for other churches or organizations to follow once all the regulations are worked out with the state.

Organizers will collect seed money for the program at the 112th annual Punchbowl Cemetery Sunrise Service on Easter Sunday, March 31, at 6:15 a.m. at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

At first Cox was going to sell his home after the recent death of his wife, Kozue Tomita "Rima" Cox, a social worker at the women’s prison, who "just loved the women she worked with," he said. But Cox decided to lease his home to the Kailua UMC for $1 a year after WCCC Warden Mark Patterson told him of the critical need for transition houses and recommended Hoo­kano as a program facilitator.

Hookano, who is studying for a social work degree, has led support groups for prisoners who have suffered trauma and other abuses. She said there are 70 women in prison here who could be paroled but have no transition houses to live in.

Hookano completed a four-year term in prison in 2010. "I was a really bad drug addict and drug dealer," she said. "I was dealing drugs since I was 12. … Prison was the best thing that ever happened to me. I got to go to recovery and learn a new way of life. My whole life is about staying clean, being a role model for other women" and helping them travel the road to recovery, she said.

Beacon House graduates — Cox wants to call them "beaconites" — will be encouraged to comprise a mentorship program to keep other women from returning to the old habits and lifestyles that landed them in prison, he said.

"We would like to demonstrate the church can be an effective entryway into a healing and support community. These churches in turn would hopefully provide ongoing transitional assistance, such as housing and employment, as they exit our Beacon of Hope residence," Cox said.

Although the program is church-supported, participation in faith-related activities is not a requirement. Hoo­kano, a member of St. John Vianney Parish, said, "They understand that not everyone who comes out of prison is believing in God."