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Just Out of Prison, Homeless and Looking for Work
DOES DENNIS HOLMES HAVE A CHANCE?
ennis Holmes grew up in Oglethorpe
County and attended high school
there through the 10th grade. His
family moved to Athens in the early 1980s,
and they lived in Parkview Homes. He says he
fell in with a tough crowd, got into trouble
e' ’' on and went to prison a couple of times,
h nas worked construction and other jobs,
but is finding it tough now to get full-time
employment and a place to live. In this inter
view, he talks about crack cocaine and his
efforts to find work and avoid returning to
prison.
Flagpole: You were addicted to crack?
Dennis Holmes: Yeah. I was under the
assumption I could possibly control it, which
I was. I was able to. I would be like, I can cut
this thing here out. And I could. I would get
paid, and I might tell myself I'm going to go
do 25 or 30 dollars worth, and, you know, I'm
through. And I could do it like that. And that
lasted all the way up to, I would say, 2001.
FP: Looks like now you're having a hard
time.
DH: I started having problems back in
2001. That's when the bottom fell out. The
bottom fell out altogether. There was some
things that were happening that I couldn't
explain, you know. Like crack: eight years I
could control this, and all of a sudden it was
controlling me. And I started having other
things happen to me... I had gotten a job
over at the chicken poultry, over here at
Pilgrim's Pride. I ended up losing my job.
FP: Why?
DH: Well, uh, I had gotten my paycheck. I
had my clothes stashed out in a truck. I was
fixing to get my clothes and wash them. But
this guy, I had them stashed out in his truck,
they were on his property, and so he seen me
go get my clothes, and he called the police on
me and had me locked up for trespassing. And
the judge, she made me stay in jail four days
before she finally decided to let me out of jail.
When she did let me out of jail, I done lost my
job, because I was on the probationary period
at the poultry.
FP: Then later you went back in for
shoplifting?
DH: For shoplifting. After I lost my job,
you know. I just diun't care no more. Judge
Lawton Stephens gave me four years: one year
in confinement, three years probation. I'm on
three years probation now. Been out of prison
four months and still haven't been able to
find full-time employment. I've been working
pieces of jobs, but no full-time job, the type
of job where I know as long as I show up, I'm
working, you know? I had been working for
this guy, but it was a situation where I might
work once every three weeks. Construction
cleanup.
FP: How about the day-labor places?
DH: Well, you know, I'll tell you what. The
day-labor thing... when I got out of prison in
November, I went to Augusta. I had my pro
bation transferred to Augusta, and I worked
out of the labor pool down there, and the guy
that ran the office down there, we were pretty
tight, you know, and he made sure I went to
work, but one day we were talking and he
said, "Dennis, I'm gonna tell you something:
these kinds of places right here, you don’t
want to get caught up with too much. Places
like-this right here, they make millions and
millions of dollars off people like y'all. We're
not paying y'all any money. All we're doing
is working y'all on the job, and at the end <3f
the week, we're the only ones benefiting."
And when he told me that it woke me up to
the whole thing. And since I've been back in
Athens, I haven't even been back to it. I'm
trying to get myself away from things like
that. If I start running back and forth to the
day labor place, I'm not making any progress
at all. If you could help me get hooked up
with something. I'd be much obliged.
FP: What’s going to happen with you?
DH: Well, I tell you what. I tell you what.
I'm thinking that I got to continue to try
to find me some work. I got to find some,
because, if I don't, I know exactly what will
happen. I'll be going back down that road
again. I'm tired of running down that road.
That type of thing: it's taking a toll on me,
physically and mentally. You know, when
you've been to prison and done your time, you
have paid your debt in full, though people
don't necessarily look at it that way.
FP: Where are you going to find a job?
DH: Just hope that something comes
through for me, and that I can get me a job
and get my life pulled together, because I've
got family members here in Athens. My mom,
she died back in 2002. I still got a sister, and
she stay out here in a trailer park, but we
don't see eye-to-eye on a whole lot of things.
So I look on it that my little daughter is the
only immediate family I got here in Athens,
you know. I got some people that are really
dear friends to me, but I'm talking about the
bloodline itself, you know? So, for my little
daughter, you know, it's very important that I
do the right thing and be a father to her.
Pete McCommons
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