CONQUEST HOUSE TRANSITIONAL ROOMING HOUSE
IN WASHINGTON, DC
The Conquest House Transitional Rooming House was created to provide a home where reentrants could come and live in a loving, supportive Christian environment that would help them meet their objective to live a self-sufficient, productive lifestyle. This home, located in Congress Heights in SE Washington, DC, provides room and board for six men who have been incarcerated and need an inexpensive place to stay until they are able to afford accommodations of their own. This home is an integral component of Conquest Offender Reintegration Ministries mission to assist formerly incarcerated men and women with reentering society following a prison or jail term.
Operation of the Home
Conquest House provides room and board for up to six adult men. The men reside two to a room and share kitchen, living, and bathroom facilities. Residents in the home are required to adhere to a strict set of rules that are designed to enforce a safe, nurturing environment for the residents of the home. Residents may stay at the home for up to 18 months, are required to maintain employment and remain drug and alcohol free throughout their stay, and are required to contribute to home operation expenses through the payment of a weekly resident fee.
Conquest House is staffed by a husband and wife resident manager team. They are responsible for managing the house and ensuring that rules are followed and that the house is properly maintained.
Is Conquest House a halfway house?
No, Conquest House is not a halfway house. Nor is it a substance abuse treatment facility, a shelter or a mental heath facility. Persons that reside in our home have already been released to the community and are free to pursue independent living accommodations. No community correctional services or parole services are performed at Conquest House. Residents are free to come and go as they please during reasonable hours, and are not residing in the house under any kind of house confinement or court orders. Conquest House consist of a community of men who share a common background and can strengthen and exhort one another.
History of Conquest House
In 1995, ConquestHouse, Inc. was established as a non-profit agency with a mission of assisting ex-offenders with the difficult transition from prison to society. At that time, as well as now, housing for formerly incarcerated individuals, particularly men, was extremely difficult to find, considering that many new releasees had no money and no job. It was either stay in a shelter, stay on the street, or link up with old friends who often got them in trouble in the first place. ConquestHouse, Inc. was created to increase the options from person with criminal records. One of our top priorities was establishing a home where they could come and live until they got on their feet.
In 1996, our organization began studies to establish such a house. We interviewed directors and residents at successful residential aftercare programs around the country. We culled data and statistics on the operation of these homes. Based on these studies, we developed a blueprint for our home and began the process of finding a building for the project. During our search, we looked at several homes all over the city, but found that most of them were either too expensive, too close to major criminal activity, or too small to effectively house more than three people, including the resident managers. We had always envisioned a small apartment building that would allow us space to function, yet not so large that the home resembled an institution rather than a dwelling.
In 1999, after three years of searching, the appropriate building came to us. A gentleman, whose past experience included prison ministry work and a stint with the NAACP prison project, saw our web site, noticed that we were in need of a building, and gave us a call. He had a building that he was willing to lease to us for our needs, provided we did the necessary repairs to get it up to code.
The building, located in the Congress Heights section of
SE Washington, DC, is a four unit semi-detached apartment building that had been
boarded up and vacant for about two years. The building had fallen into
disrepair over the years since the owner acquired it in 1979, and the 
owner
could no longer afford to maintain the premises in accordance with local housing
codes. Since the building’s closure, vagrants had broken into the building and
stolen most of the copper piping and the radiators, and a long standing roof
leak had caused much of the ceiling drywall to fall and the floors to buckle.
When we acquired the building in September 1999, it was strewn with fallen
drywall, clothes, broken furniture, beer bottles, and other debris. Since then,
the building has been renovated and has been given code compliant approval by
the District government.
HOW THIS PROJECT BENEFITS THE COMMUNITY
Establishment and support of our Transitional Rooming House not only benefits the men who reside in the building, but also benefits the immediate community and the community-at-large. A factor in crime on our streets is the presence of men and women on the streets who have previously been incarcerated for a crime, but have become acclimated to the criminal process and will not hesitate to commit another crime if they cannot cope any other way. Therefore, programs such as ours will not only provide shelter and other necessities to these individuals so that they need not worry about them, but will help them to change their hearts, minds and attitudes about crime.
In addition, our project helps to reduce homelessness and revitalize the community by renovating an eyesore of a building into a functional, clean and safe dwelling, thereby removing another building from the legions of boarded, abandoned buildings in the city.
HOW DOES ONE BECOME A RESIDENT OF CONQUEST HOUSE?
Since Conquest House has a limited number of accommodations, we give priority consideration to CORM clients who meet the below criteria:
a. Current CORM clients who are released and living in emergency shelters or who are living in unstable living environments.
b. Current CORM clients who are in halfway homes or in prison and are scheduled to be released, whether on parole or on completion of sentence, within a month.
Persons who do not meet the above criteria may apply and be placed on a waiting list until room is available and there are no persons available who meet the above criteria. Persons who do not meet the above criteria may apply at any time, but if their name comes up, and they are not either released or within 1 month of being released, they will be pushed back on the waiting list. CORM will not hold beds for persons who cannot move in within 30 days after room becomes available.
Becoming a CORM client involves completing an application and being accepted. Contact Laverne Brewster at 202-723-2014 to have an application mailed to you.
For more information about Conquest House, contact:
Laverne Brewster
Conquest Reintegration Ministries
PO Box 41493
Washington DC 20018-0893
202-723-2014
The Conquest House Transitional Rooming House is an independently operated, independently funded subsidiary of ConquestHouse, Inc. dba Conquest Reintegration Ministries.