Green Oak Ranch: Where They Won’t Let You Slide . . . Luckily

Lee Johnson was living on the edge and shooting “John Belushis”--potentially lethal cocaine-heroin combos--into his arm when he wondered one day if he would ever crawl out of his own personal black hole. He was 40ish, going on dead.

“I didn’t want to go to some phoney-baloney dry-out place where the owner’s son is doping the place and the counselors are hooked, so I started talking to the chaplain at the Union Rescue Mission” in downtown Los Angeles, he said.

“He asked me, ‘Do you wanna accept the Lord?’ I had to accept something from somebody because what I was doing wasn’t working,” Johnson said.

So the streetwise but worn-out Johnson, who had led a life of “fast cars, fast women, fast police and slow drugs” in Los Angeles and Hollywood, agreed to give his life a Christian focus, on the condition that he go to a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Vista.

“I said, ‘ Vista? Where’s that, the other side of Mars?’ But I figured it must be greener grounds, and here I came.”

142-Acre Retreat and Rehab Center

“Here” is Green Oak Ranch, a 142-acre retreat and rehabilitation center quietly owned and operated by the Union Rescue Mission of Los Angeles to salvage the lives of men who were going nowhere fast on Skid Row.

At the ranch, set in a little rural valley snuggled between new industrial parks and one of Vista’s hallmark residential neighborhoods, more than 1,000 men who were momentarily sober enough to seek help at the Union Rescue Mission in downtown Los Angeles have learned to put distance between themselves and the booze and drugs that drained them of their dignity.

In groups of 40 at a time, they live here for a year or more, combining a program of schooling, job training and Christian devotion in order to dry out, learn a skill and get a job. Not all of them will succeed, but those who do--like Johnson--say they’ll never return to Skid Row . . . in any city.

Johnson remembers his first impression when he arrived at the ranch nine months ago: “ ‘I think I just took a step toward Heaven.’ They told me I couldn’t leave the ranch for a month and I kept on wondering, ‘Why would I want to leave?’

“And now you’re looking at the closest thing you’ll ever see to a miracle,” he said. “When you do drugs, you live by the minute, between your doses of the devil and going from one jolt to the next and convincing yourself you’re seeking happiness.

“Now those minutes are turning into days and as long as I can say I haven’t shot up any dope today, I’m winning. For me, it’s been almost 10 months.”

The rehabilitation center is only half the story of Green Oak Ranch, albeit the more dramatic portion.

Shared With Youth Camp for the Public

Half of the ranch is open to the public, developed as a youth camp and a retreat center for youth groups, churches and other organizations for daylong or weeklong getaways. Any given year, more than 5,000 people stay at the complex, where they enjoy such quintessential retreat offerings as horseback riding, hayrides, campfires, swimming, horseshoes and volleyball.

But it’s the other half of the ranch that seems such an anomaly in North San Diego County--a rehabilitation center that is only two hours, give or take a life style, from the gutters, empty bottles and dirty needles of downtown Los Angeles.

The ranch began operations in 1950--back when the area was the boondocks of wide-open North County--and has operated virtually without controversy ever since, even as growth has crept up the neighboring hillsides.

Ranch operators say it is that rustic environment, with its trees and stream, horse corrals and barns, that serves an important role in helping to develop new beginnings in life for men who thought they were facing dead-ends.

But most important to the success of the ranch program, they say, are the commitment and fellowship of the men who come to Green Oak Ranch.

If Los Angeles’ Skid Row used to be the domain of men in their 40s, 50s and 60s who bottomed out in life by looking into the bottom of wine bottles, it now includes younger people like Kingsley Johnson who have hit bottom because of drugs.

Johnson is 26. He was fired from his job on an assembly line and had a drug-related rap sheet when he walked into the Union Rescue Mission one day, looking for food.

“It seemed that every time I turned a corner and saw a bright spot, it would close in on me before I got there,” he says of his life.

He ended up in Vista, at the chaplain’s suggestion.

“Every day I’m here I’m growing stronger. When I first came here, I could hardly provide for myself. Now I want to become a meat cutter and now I’m thinking about starting a family so I can provide for others, too.”

The men are selected for admission to Green Oak Ranch based on interviews with Union Rescue Mission chaplains in Los Angeles and Vista.

“They have to be willing to commit themselves to becoming sober through the rigors of an alcohol and drug abuse program, to put in eight hours of work a day and in going to school,” said the Rev. Bill Bird, the head chaplain at the Vista facility.

“We look for commitment, for them being honest to themselves, to God and to us, and to have gratitude. If they’re not going to have thanksgiving in their heart for God, they won’t make it here.”

Newcomers are put in an eight-week orientation program centered on daily Christian study and devotion, as well as participation in the Alcoholics for Christ sobriety program.

In addition, they are given basic training in such areas as work ethics, money management, personal hygiene and etiquette. “Most of these men have never worked before, or have never had to report to a boss,” Bird notes. “And most of them have never opened up a bank account, or are even confident about the proper way to use a knife and fork.”

Tutoring in reading, writing and mathematics is offered by volunteers, and testing is done to determine the men’s skills and interest areas. Some men are enrolled in local high schools to earn their high school equivalency diploma; others are enrolled in either Palomar or MiraCosta community colleges for vocational training. A course in meat cutting is held on the ranch and taught by the ranch’s food services manager as part of Palomar’s curriculum; half the students are former Skid Row men, and the others are local, North County students.

‘New Life’ Program

At the end of the eight-week newcomers’ program, the men are evaluated; usually, all decide to stay on for the full tour, called the “New Life” program.

In that program, the men attend area schools to attain vocational certificates or high school diplomas. In addition, they work full schedules at the ranch itself, tending to any number of chores and jobs ranging from construction to maintenance to kitchen duties. It is more than busy work, ranch managers say; the camp needs to be maintained not only as a residential complex for the men but also as a summer and retreat camp for the public.

The men stay in the “New Life” program for as long as necessary--sometimes a year or longer--before graduating into the final “Half Way” program in which they are allowed to remain at the ranch while looking for, and starting, jobs off the ranch. They are required to put most of their earnings into a savings account for the six-month period so that, when they are ready to move off the ranch, they have enough funds to rent an apartment, put down utility deposits and buy necessary furnishings.

All the while, the men are encouraged to establish affiliations with churches off the ranch.

“We don’t believe a man who hasn’t made a commitment to God will be successful in the outside world,” Bird said. “They’ll need to draw strength for their sobriety in church settings, otherwise they’ll be looking for fellowship in the nearest barroom.”

Raphael Williams, 28, has been at Green Oak Ranch for five months.

“I was tired and depressed, always trying to get high and stay high, and I finally decided I didn’t want Scotty (cocaine) to beam me up any more. So here I am.

“I had always believed in Jesus Christ but the things I was doing in L.A. weren’t allowing me to stay in contact with Him. But I really need that spiritual life. It’s been the cement that has helped keep my life together.

“Hey, there ain’t nothing phony about this place. This place is a blessing, big time.”

The Union Rescue Mission initially bought 130 acres of the property “for a place for men to get away from the downtown L.A. environment,” said John Dunham, general manager of the ranch. Later, 12 more acres were bought, giving the mission ownership of the entire small valley right up to the surrounding ridgelines to ensure there would be no residential or industrial encroachment.

Today the property is worth millions of dollars, but there are no plans to sell it, Dunham said.

The entire facility, including both the public retreat center and the men’s rehabilitation complex, costs about $1 million a year to operate. It is funded both by donations and income from the campground-retreat center.

The men in the rehabilitation program do not intermingle with children at the youth camp unless under direct supervision of the ranch staff. In addition, they are fingerprinted and subjected to background checks to make sure none is a child molester or sex offender, Dunham said.

Each man is given a small allowance, ranging from $11 a week for newcomers to a maximum of $50 a week for men in the Half Way program, and generally they are allowed to leave the compound at will.

“If we tried to keep them cooped up here for a year, what do you think they’d do the first chance they had to go out?” Bird asks.

Some men do simply walk away from the ranch in mid-program and never come back. Some men who are not succeeding in the program, based on their personal behavior, work performance, school grades or commitment to sobriety, are dismissed--and are given bus fare back to Los Angeles, where they are encouraged to return to the Union Rescue Mission for another program.

About 40% of the men who come here end up getting a vocational certificate or educational degree of one sort or another as well as a job, and usually stay in North County, Dunham said.

“We’re told that’s a high percentage,” he said. “given the kind of people we’re working with.”

He’s 33, but doesn’t want his name or picture in the newspaper for fear someone will recognize him. Nonetheless, he says he’s glad he’s at the ranch.

“I didn’t see myself going anywhere but in a circle. I’d wake up just so I could go back to sleep high. I decided it was time for a change. And now I see that I do have a future, something to look forward to.

“I look back over my five months here and I wonder if I had spent these past five months in L.A., would I be dead by now?”

Lonnie Floyd spent a year at the ranch and left on his own because he didn’t think it was doing him any good, only to decide to come back and give it a second try. This time, he has been here eight months.

He remembers how he would get by in Los Angeles by selling blood and putting a quarter in a newsrack, taking out all the newspapers and then peddling them on the sidewalk for profit. “And I ripped off friends and family. That’s not a very good feeling.”

“I was tired of hanging my head down. Now that I’m here, I’m getting a lot of loving and caring here that I couldn’t seem to find anywhere else,” Floyd says. “We’re all here showing each other that we care. We’ve all been through the same thing in L.A., and now we’re here to help each other, to show that we have value.”

Dick, who doesn’t want his last name used, attended the ranch program 10 years ago and now is on the full-time kitchen staff.

“The value of this place to me was that it gave us dignity of meaningful work, not just busy work,” he says. “We’re keeping this place maintained for the children. I’m finally able to do something for somebody else instead of just for good ol’ No. 1, me.

“This place gave me the tools to get sober. Everybody here is for you and they’ll help you every step of the way as long as it’s your decision to get sober,” he says. “And when you hear 300 kids in the dining hall laughing and having a good time, pal, that makes it all worth it.”

John Fenty, 33, is big and round, with virtually no neck, a gargantuan smile and a wonderfully mellow voice. He used it as a commission salesman in telephone sales. He used it in selling drugs. One was as easy to him as the other, involving the same slick skills and charisma.

“It was fast, easy money, but I spent it just as fast. I got to living above my means and I ended up having to move to downtown Los Angeles to make ends meet,” he says.

“I had gotten out of drugs but then I fell back into it in L.A., free-basing cocaine. It took ahold of me and pulled me down, and I wound up at the mission. I still figured I could run my scams to keep up my habit, and then the Lord entered my life.

“I’ve been here since May. Now I’m certified as a nursing assistant and I’m going after my home health aide certificate. I don’t see any reason to go back to L.A. I’d like to stay here, in Vista.

“It can be too easy now, taking life for granted. I forget how I used to ride the bus all night for a place to sleep, and standing in front of McDonald’s, panhandling. But God knew there was a chance for me. He gave me this opportunity--and the wisdom to use it.”