HOUSE OF HOPE TRIES TO CLOSE REVOLVING DOOR

SEMINOLE HEIGHTS - Sandy Massey smoked pot for the first time at 15.
By 18, she was shooting heroin.

Not long after, a jail cell became her home and heroin became an addiction.

Now Massey, 50, is hoping to end her battle with the help of an old
house and an 80-year-old woman.

"I've partied long enough," she said. "I want to salvage what I can
of my life."

Massey lives in the Hillsborough House of Hope, a 1920s two-story
house in Seminole Heights where formerly incarcerated women are given
a chance to create a new life.

Margaret Palmer, then in her 70s, envisioned the Christian-based
residential program almost 10 years ago. With the help of others, she
turned it into reality.

The nonprofit program will celebrate its four-year anniversary Jan.
7. Nearly 40 women have been through the program; about 25 have
successfully finished, a high number, Palmer said, for a
rehabilitative program.

Palmer began visiting female inmates in the Hillsborough County jail
system in 1985. As months passed, she and two other colleagues
noticed that there was a revolving door: The same women, usually in
their early 20s, were being arrested repeatedly.

"I thought, 'Why is this happening?'" Palmer said. "They had no place
to go except back to the streets."

By the late '90s, the women seemed to be getting younger. Palmer said
she started seeing 18-year-olds.

Palmer wanted something better for the women and began planning for
it in 1998. She formulated the idea of having a big house with about
10 women, but Cal Henderson, then Hillsborough County sheriff,
advised her differently.

He told her to take three women at a time and "pour everything you
have in them," Palmer recalled.

And that's what she did.

"We're still the new kid on the block," Palmer said. "We've found out
what works and what hasn't."

'It Gives You Hope'

A house manager lives with the three women in the bluish-gray house,
which was purchased for $112,000. Each woman gets her own room and
computer and is responsible for buying groceries and cooking her own meals.

Most women stay at the house about six months. The majority who enter
Hillsborough House of Hope have been arrested for drug possession,
drug paraphernalia or petty theft, said Linda Walker, the program's
manager, who has successfully fought a crack addiction.

A court order sent Lisa Marshall to the house. Marshall, 40, said she
stayed clean from drugs for two years before she relapsed in July.
She has been using drugs since she was a teenager. Her drugs of
choice: marijuana, heroin, crack, alcohol and prescription pills.

"I needed more structure," Marshall said. "I just slowly started
seeing [drugs] creeping back into my life."

Through the program, Marshall is "learning a different way of life."

Marshall and her housemate, Massey, have been in the program for
three months. They will get a third housemate after New Year's.

"It gives you hope, even when you don't think it's out there," Marshall said.

Marshall and Massey's bodies have taken a beating over the years from
their drug use. Marshall has emphysema from inhaling crack cocaine
and says her body feels run-down. Massey has hepatitis C and mild
liver damage. In November, cancer was removed from a lung.

Follow The Rules

The women are expected to follow the house rules. Three write-ups for
violating the rules will get them kicked out.

Some of the rules:

Curfew at 11 p.m. weekdays; midnight on weekends.

No cars, no relationships and no miniskirts.

Attend church on Sundays.

The program partners with about a dozen organizations, so the women
can get substance abuse treatment five days a week, obtain health
care and find work, among other things.

After they get a job, the women contribute 30 percent of their
paychecks toward rent. Usually, Walker said, it's not much - $30 to
$60 - but it helps teach the women responsibility and how to budget.

Ten percent of the check goes into a savings account. The program has
a partnership with two credit unions. In six months, the women can
save $600 to $1,000, Walker said.

The women also are required to have a sponsor and attend either
Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous regularly.

It isn't all work, though. They go to the movies, make arts and
crafts, and have a weekly roommate dinner.

The Bigger Picture

The program has been criticized for not being cost effective, taking
only three women at a time. The program's president, Claudia Sellers,
said it probably would be less expensive to run the program with more
women, but it wouldn't work as well.

"What is the value of a life?" Sellers said.

The program's $40,000 budget runs off donations. The program usually
has a $1,300 monthly shortfall. Sellers says a prayer and somehow the
shortfall always gets met with the help of churches and other supporters.

Bayshore Baptist Church decided to support the program after hearing
graduates and Walker talk about their battles with addiction, the
Rev. Steve Hadden said. The church gives a small amount to the
program, he said.

"It's a helping hand," Hadden said. "But it's also teaching that God
can give you strength and that people can give you support, and
together your life can be turned around."

It also helps law enforcement because it cuts back on recidivism,
said Tampa Assistant Chief of Police Jane Castor, a member of the
program's board of directors.

More importantly, Castor said, the program benefits families because
most of the women have children.

"You're not just helping the women but also their children," she said.

Walker said some graduates have reconciled with their children or
have gotten their children back from the state.

Henderson, who retired from the sheriff's office two years ago, said
that when the mothers clean up, it helps keep their children out of
the same lifestyle.

"It's a real good prevention program, although it doesn't aim at
prevention," he said.

Castor and program workers said there is a need for more programs
like Hillsborough House of Hope. Six women are waiting to get into
the house, Walker said.

The Next Step

Margaret Palmer's vision didn't end when the house opened.

It's often hard for felons to find a place to live, so Palmer hopes
to expand to another house or an apartment complex.

Sellers, the program's president, said the expansion will be easier
after the house's $43,000 mortgage is paid - a goal for 2007.

Palmer, a former theater director, thought she would spend her 70s
and 80s traveling and reading, not creating a safe haven for women.

She wouldn't change a thing.

"I love it," Palmer said. "It's not the greatest difference in the
world, maybe, but it's a difference."