Dennis Holmes

Just Out of Prison, Homeless and Looking for Work: Does He Have a Chance?

originally published March 12, 2008

Dennis Holmes

Dennis 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 early on and went to prison a couple of times. He has worked construction and other jobs, but is finding it tough now to get full-time employment and a place to live. In this interview, 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.

Flagpole

Looks like now you’re having a hard time.

Dennis Holmes

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.

Flagpole

Why?

Dennis Holmes

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.

Flagpole

Then later you went back in for shoplifting?

Dennis Holmes

For shoplifting. After I lost my job, you know. I just didn’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.

Flagpole

And was it always crack? Was it ever pot? Did you ever get to coke or heroin?

Dennis Holmes

I have never, ever done heroin before in my life. Never ever. I’m thankful that I was never introduced to that.

Flagpole

Are you going to any of the day-labor places?

Dennis Holmes

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 probation 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 of 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.

Flagpole

Dennis, what’s going to happen with you?

Dennis Holmes

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.

Flagpole

Where are you going to find a job?

Dennis Holmes

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