.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 10px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} At age 30, Cary Hollingsworth has his life back.

A former methamphetamine addict, the Winterset resident learned life skills he says will enable him to stay clean through the Port of Entry Recovery House. Now, he’s giving back by mentoring residents of a program called 180 Degrees, which operates a house in Des Moines that provides transitional housing and counseling for recovering drug addicts, the majority of them veterans.

During the seven months he spent at Port of Entry on Lyon Street last year, Hollingsworth helped renovate the three-story house at 3650 Cottage Grove Ave., which 180 Degrees uses as its primary facility.

“They saved my life,” said Hollingsworth, who now counsels other recovering addicts in the program. Jailed twice on drug convictions, he lost his carpentry business and faced a choice of entering the Port of Entry rehabilitation program or going to prison. Now, Hollingsworth has a stake in his family’s farm and builds houses on the side.

“Today I have land and livestock, and a house and relationship with my family,” he said. “They taught me responsibility and priorities, and how important it is to give back once you’ve gone through the program.”

Tracy Jones, 180 Degrees’ CEO, has worked with both Port of Entry and Spectrum Resources, a re-entry program for ex-offenders. Jones said he started 180 Degrees to address a need he saw for a comprehensive program that provides a safe, drug-free place for men to receive counseling, gain job skills and learn budgeting and other survival skills.

The 180 Degrees program has caught the attention of a number of Des Moines business owners who are interested in providing jobs for program participants. A group of investors also plans to form a series of for-profit businesses geared toward providing employment for 180 Degrees’ clients.

More than 60 men have completed the 180 Degrees program since the organization was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in 2004.

Jones said he initially served primarily ex-offenders upon their release from the prison system, but began taking in veterans as well.

“I had three or four veterans (at Port of Entry) who were real concerned about their brothers,” he said. “They went to the (Department of Veterans Affairs) and told them about us. We saw a need as well as (Port of Entry) did, and we kind of merged. Now we’re a subcontract housing provider for them.”

Currently, about 70 percent of 180 Degrees’ clients are veterans, though the program more broadly addresses problems for homeless and drug-addicted men.

“A lot of them battle with mental illnesses as well as drug addictions,” Jones said. “What we try to do is get them in a first, safe environment, drug-free. We don’t push them to go directly to work. Most men, the first thing they want after they get clean and sober is a job; a job will get me my self-esteem back. But they’re not job-ready.”

The program currently works with 26 men at the Cottage Grove house, with a structured program to teach them how to cook, clean and take care of themselves, mixed with classes focused on examining the underlying reasons for their addictions. Each must earn a required number of points in the residential program before qualifying to enter the jobs program.

“If you can change the thinking, the behavior has to change,” Jones said. “That’s really (the philosophy) we work from.”

The nonprofit organization is funded in part by VA per-diem payments for the veterans it houses, along with grants, private donations and volunteer labor, Jones said. The nonprofit eventually may be able to receive income from the for-profit enterprises with which it will affiliate, he said.

The first of those businesses will be a development company to purchase more houses to be renovated by participants who are interested in learning construction skills, Jones said.

“We want to take this opportunity to do something different,” he said. “I want to take these individuals and find out what they’re good at. I want to buy enough work to perfect their painting skills. I want to do the same thing with roofers, plumbers, electricians. I want to give them one skill.

“Rehabbing these properties will serve another population,” he added. “We want to produce low- to moderate-income housing. There’s a big window of opportunity out there to deal with a lot of nuisance housing problems. This is a need that the city has, and it’s bigger than just the training.”

Hollingsworth said he has been asked by Jones to assist in the remodeling and construction work for the training houses as they’re purchased. And, like many others who have completed the program, Hollings-worth has agreed to mentor current participants.

“I mentor three or four guys on a daily basis,” he said. “That’s probably 100 percent of my recovery; I give back what was given to me,” he said. “The approach works. I’m living proof of it.”

Jerry Murphy, a semi-retired business consultant, has been working on behalf of 180 Degrees to develop relationships with Central Iowa employers. So far, a handful of businesses have hired the program’s clients, and half of the men presently in the residential program are now fully employed, he said.

180 Degrees takes a different approach to job placement than other nonprofit agencies, Murphy said.

“One of the biggest complaints employers have given us, particularly with these other nonprofit agencies, is that they’re just references; they just refer the client to the employer and then it’s hands-off with very little follow-up,” he said.

“Our program is that we’re not only going to get them ready to be good employees, but we’ll actually deliver them to the employer and pick them up. By delivering them to the employers, then they’re on time. We even provide a job coach to go in with them so they understand fully the instructions from the employer so there’s no miscommunication and they can get a better start on the job.”

Murphy, who also counsels the participants on the attributes that companies are seeking in their employees, said veterans returning from Iraq are having a particularly hard time.

“I think the military does a good job in getting people into the military and getting them ready for the military; it doesn’t do a good job in helping them to get out of the military and back into regular society,” he said. “Another thing we’re seeing is that some guys are returning and expecting to find family life the way it was, but the spouse may have left, taken up with somebody else. Another really bad problem we’re seeing is that a lot of these guys are in a divorce situation and have previous child-support issues. The state comes in and takes up to 50 percent of their wages, and they can’t make it.”

Murphy is also involved in starting the business that will bring in investors to purchase houses to be fixed up by 180 Degrees clients. “We want to keep some [of those houses] for residents’ apartments, and sell some to low-income residents,” he said. “180 Degrees would be a part owner and would provide the training program and access to employees.”

As this and other companies providing employment for 180 Degrees clients are formed, Murphy hopes to structure some of these as employee-owned companies.

Jerald Brantley, executive director of Spectrum Resources, said he believes 180 Degrees’ services are needed, particularly to provide the housing component along with treatment. “We work with the YMCA, several other housing agencies such as Hansen House and Port of Entry to get rooms and a stable living environment for our clients; 180 Degrees is one part of that,” he said.

As a newer program, it will take time for 180 Degrees to become known, Brantley said. “We’ve been going on for 13 years. He’s still new and still has some bumps until he gets known. That’s always an uphill battle.”

Sean Haire, owner of More Than Just Windows, a Des Moines cleaning and maintenance company, has hired about nine 180 Degrees clients since June to work in his company’s construction division.

“It’s been working great,” he said. “Tracy does a great job working with the guys, teaching them about communication, handling money, getting them back into the work force.” He has hired people to install drywall, paint and clean at wages between $8 and $10 per hour.

“Tracy will sit down with the employers and find out what kind of backgrounds we need to complete jobs,” Haire said. “They really do a lot of matching up with the skills they have to what the employers need done.”

Storey-Kenworthy Inc. was among the companies that 180 Degrees contacted early on to gauge interest in the program from the business community.

“A lot of businesses are struggling with hiring quality employees, especially hourly wage employees, the laborer pool,” said John Kenworthy, vice president of Storey-Kenworthy. Though the office furniture company hasn’t hired any 180 Degrees clients yet, it will consider applicants from the program for delivery, warehouse and furniture installation positions, he said.

Additionally, “I had expressed interest that if they identified business opportunities that weren’t being filled, that I would be interested in being an investor,” Kenworthy said.

Murphy said 37 businesses have either invested in the program, shown interest in investing or have said they would provide jobs to clients. The nonprofit’s original business plan called for 180 Degrees to develop relationships with 280 Central Iowa businesses.

“We were going through the process of seeking employers, but got slowed down by the process of getting the houses ready,” he said. “Now that we’re wrapping that up, we’re going out and seeking employers as well as starting up businesses for them to work in.”

For more information about the 180 Degrees program, contact Tracy Jones at 279-0046 or e-mail him at tracyjones180@msn.com.