Living With Convictions: building a home after prison

Those who do nonprofit work in challenging places or with suffering populations often have something deeply personal at stake. That is certainly the case for Joshua Stancil, a North Carolina native who founded Living with Convictions. LWC is a Catholic ministry and nonprofit that provides transitional housing for men navigating reentry after incarceration.

Joshua understands these challenges personally, as he was once a convict himself. Upon his release from prison 10 years ago, Joshua realized that he had it better than most of the people had known behind bars. He was able to complete his college education and start his own media company. His friends and parents were supportive and his economic situation stable.

As Joshua tells it, he had gotten a lot of breaks: a roof over his head; access to transportation and healthcare. He knew he didn’t think he deserved those breaks, and he felt tremendous gratitude for them. Despite his many blessings, it was still painfully difficult.

In a conversation with Aleteia, Joshua Stancil explains the experience of getting out of prison this way: “It feels like you have a target on your back – like everyone you see or meet knows.” He became increasingly aware of how difficult it was to find a home and build a life after incarceration. Over the years, a deep desire to help ease the transition for others grew within him.

While he continued to work as a writer and video editor, Joshua couldn’t stop talking about his dream to start a non-profit – until one day a good friend told him she was sick of hearing about it and that it was time to act. In 2022, they sat down with a whiteboard and started talking about the practical details needed to make his ideas a reality. Soon he met other friends who were interested in helping out and Living With Convictions was born.

Joshua stresses that what characterizes Living with Convictions is the desire to provide a real home and not just housing. A cradle Catholic, he was visited by several members of the Catholic lay movement Communion and Liberation while in prison, and the friendships that were subsequently formed had a profound impact on his faith and life.

LWC houses are founded on Christian principles; there is time for communal prayer and common life. But the houses also wear their structure lightly: the focus is on building up the residents, helping them to live a better and fuller life, rather than simply occupying their time. Joshua contrasts this flexibility with the dehumanizing nature of prison, which affects so much of a person’s sense of self. You become, he explains, an inmate with a number, and that is the only way guards refer to you. LWC intends to provide a sense of normalcy, and a belief that those who live there can be trusted.

That focus on community is reflected in the process of choosing residents as well. Stancil receives vast numbers of applications, which far exceed the capacity of the two houses they have currently built. “If we had ten houses, instead of two, we would be filling them all to 100% capacity,” he says. While Stancil doesn’t want to be picky, the limited space means he needs to have some criteria in place. In choosing new residents, he focuses on what infractions people committed while in prison; what kind of attitude did they have toward the community they were living with?

The homes themselves are remarkably ordinary: residents live together, go food shopping together and often eat together. They help each other out with transportation to and from work and doctor’s appointments. Joshua personally provides hours of transportation for the residents himself, since not all of them have licenses and they must share vehicles.

Neighbors have found no reason to complain. In most ways, LWC residents have shown themselves to be quite unremarkable, which is precisely Joshua’s intention. The easy camaraderie and daily collaboration are an example of something that is, in fact, quietly and powerfully exceptional: men and women made new and whole through the mercy of God, thanks to the hands and eyes of his laborers.

For more information about Living with Convictions, you can visit their website.