Rutland Dismas House offers transitional housing for men and women coming out of prison. We are drug and alcohol and violence free. The 11 residents live in the community and experience tremendous support from local Rutland area community members.
This page will serve as a source of information about the Rutland Dismas House as well as Dismas of Vermont. The Rutland Dismas House receives generous support from the community and we would like to keep the community informed about what we are doing.
The mission of Dismas of Vermont, Inc. is to reconcile former prisoners with society and society with former prisoners.
Community is fundamentally about relationship and it is precisely the relationship between the person who has committed a crime and their community that is broken, first by the real harm done by the crime committed and subsequently by the alienation that results from incarceration. In reconciliation, wholeness is restored to the former prisoner and to society.
If we hold people accountable for their actions as a matter of justice, then reconciliation is a completion of that justice. For a former prisoner to be reconciled to their community that person needs to overcome the sense of alienation –that sense of being an outsider and unwanted and they must become participating members of their community, they must be returned to full citizenship with all its responsibilities and rights.
