Kent peer-run agency uses experience to help those with addiction, mental health

Sundaywill mark 17 years of uninterrupted sobriety for Darnell Howard. Using his personal experience, he is making that same goal attainable for others.

Howard is the executive director of Free Agents 4 Recovery. Headquartered on Franklin Avenue just off of Route 261 in Kent, Free Agents is a state certified peer-run organization. That means, Howard said, it was created by peers and is run by peers.

"The lived experience is what peer support is all about," he said. "To be a state certified peer supporter, you have to have had that lived experience."

A “free agent” is a resource broker, Howard explained. The agency provides people in need with resources such as food, shoes, resume help and more. If people leave the doors of the agency without getting help, he said, it is because they chose against it.

Howard called the program “holistic” in its approach, in that it focuses on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. In short, a person's most basic needs must be addressed first while they work through recovery. It would be fruitless to talk to an individual about a job or housing if they are hungry, Howard said, so people are fed from the Free Agency pantry first. Then, the agency helps them become stable with housing and employment. 

Originally, the program started with a single agent. Howard began working with those wanted to end addiction by himself in 2012. Operations were stopped temporarily in 2017 after Howard became severely ill. In 2018, his daughter, Tanesha Howard, shaped the organization to be what it is today.

Howard, a U.S. Navy veteran, graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in Kent a year early with multiple basketball scholarships. He eventually ended up at Contra Costa College in California. People were driving luxury cars, he said, and the desire to have his own introduced him to selling cocaine. He sold for four years before curiosity got him addicted, he said.

Howard said his cocaine habit landed him in prison, where he continued to use drugs. Five years into his sentence, he got in a fight with a guard and was moved from a minimum security prison to a supermax.

Howard said the turning point in his life came when, after his release, he was asked by a detective to work with a now-defunct alternative school. Howard has since gone on to use his experience and three college degrees to help others.

Norma Figueroa has been in recovery for nearly five years. Much of it has to do with mental health, she said, as she copes with anxiety, major depression and PTSD every day. She is a native of New York City and was in one of the World Trade Center towers when they were attacked on Sept. 11, 2001.

First it was hard to talk about, she said, but it's become easier more recently. She said she started attending grief counseling and was able to begin commemorating the events of 9/11. Her goal and her purpose now, she said, is to start helping others. It's a big reason why she is working to earn a degree in psychology as well as certification as a chemical dependency counselor assistant.

Free Agents also networks with companies to help people find jobs with a sustainable wage.

Jack Metcalf, who has been in recovery for three years, said he was out on the streets and on drugs for years. He was messed up, he said, and started to try to make a change even though he did not have the resources. In addition to a good-paying job, the group also helped him reconnect with his children.

“I got it all. Like, literally, I got it all. I go through my little struggles, but I do it sober," he said.

A lot of people don’t have a family, Metcalf said, but Free Agents 4 Recovery is big, welcoming family.

Tammy Mounts, who is three and a half years into her recovery, said addiction is often a sign of underlying problems, many of which are related to mental health. She explained that addicts need meetings like diabetics need insulin. Fighting addiction is something they will have to battle every day to make sure they stay the course. 

“I was in active addiction for 30 years, running these streets. It takes that one person reaching out a hand to help change your whole entire life," Mounts said.

Mounts said that, at Free Agents meetings, people are allowed to tell their stories "in the raw." They speak without worry of censorship, believing it keeps people clean and sober. That is why its important for stories to be told wholly and truthfully.

Free Agents 4 Recovery is in need of funding, Howard said. The group is also seeking someone with knowledge of grant writing to donate their time and expertise.

Recovery is ongoing, Howard said, adding that he sees a lot of embarrassment and shame and stigma associated with mental health and addiction treatment.

“This program has helped me have a relationship not only with my daughter who is 13 years old, but I have a 23 year old son," Mounts said. "For the first time I think ever in his life, he finally said to me that he's proud of me."

Learn more about Free Agents 4 Recovery by visiting its website, www.freeagents4recovery.com. Donation opportunities, community resources and success stories can be found there as well.

Contact reporter Kaitlyn McGarvey with Kent news by email at kmcgarvey@recordpub.com or on Twitter at @kaitlynmcg_rc