Remember, Remember the 5th of December: OnceFallen.com turns 10!

Long before I knew there was even a movement against the registry, one of my dreams while incarcerated was to create a resource for registered citizens. In Alabama, a registrant was not allowed to register as homeless; people who could not find housing before their release dates were being charged with FTR and sent back to jail. I remember when I was in the county jail, one man had lived there for months past his end-of-sentence date. I didn't have anyone searching for housing for me. I was at a disadvantage. I was a week away from an FTR charge myself when I found a church in Cincinnati willing to take me in, and I've been here ever since. 

Before I became an activist, I had already endured the similar struggles we all faced as registered persons-- homelessness, job discrimination, housing search difficulties, and harassment. Many local charities refused to help me get on my feet. I eventually found a menial job and a sleeping room, but eventually, the state of Ohio decided I didn't receive enough punishment, arbitrarily reclassifying me as a "predator" and forcing me to move away from a GED program for people ages 16-21 (16 is the Age of Consent but the GED program counted as a school under the law).

I first discovered an online network of registrants while looking for housing and employment online from a defunct site that debated the need for sex offender laws. I started chatting with a woman named Jan, who was a registrant, and through her I was introduced to a group known as SOHopeful. Jan helped me fight the residency restriction laws and even though I lost after a year-long battle in the courts, it bought me time to find a new place to live. However, no sooner than I moved into my new home, I was forced to defend it again, this time at Cincinnati City Hall (On December 5th, 2006). I won a partial victory, inspiring others to speak out against the bill and getting the city to water down the law to where it impacted fewer people. It was my first taste of activism, which I shared in a video:

I had shared an article I wrote as part of my battle against the city [CLICK HERE to read it], and people told me I should write an entire book. I spent the first half of 2007 writing, going to the law library at the University of Cincinnati, printing out researching before returning home to write up part of the book, and repeating. (I did not have home Internet back then.) During this time, our movement was small but growing. RSOL was a petition site, SOSEN was still a Yahoo Group but looking to create their own website, and there wasn't even an activist group in California. SOHopeful was the big dog at the time, but leadership was lacking. Having tasted street-level activism and seeing how it can be effective, I always found behind-the-scenes work to be dull and lacking impact. That is why I was excited to learn the organizations not named SOHopeful was having a rally in Columbus, a mere 100 miles away, I just had to be there. 

There was a lot of behind-the-scenes drama surrounding the event, of course, and SOHopeful was in utter chaos. While the top brass there hated the rally and didn't support it (in fact, they condemned it), many folks supported it. The result of the in-fighting was a mass exodus from SOHopeful to SOSEN and RSOL, and SOHopeful quickly faded into oblivion. I pretty much figured SOHopeful was on the decline, and I had already written a handful of useful articles, so I decided it was best to publish my writings elsewhere. I did a little research, and even though I did not have home Internet, I had a laptop, and I found what I thought was the best deal at the time. Thus, on December 5, 2007, one full year to the day that I walked into the Cincinnati City Hall to fight for my right to live in the city, Once Fallen went online. 

This journey has not been easy. For the past decade, I've had to balance my life as a voice for the voiceless with a personal life. I'm on call almost all the time, and since I'm a one-man operation, I have to do everything myself, from taking calls to speaking to legislators and media personalities. My operation continues to expand (as well as my website) as I continue to take on more projects like inmate newsletters and taking on more out-of-state legislation. I get burned out at times from the annoying aspects of life as an anti-registry activist, like dealing with drama from fellow activists (and with some that term is rather subjective), dealing with online idiots, and the overall lack of support from most of the other groups for even simple things like sharing my latest survey on disaster preparedness. However, I remain 100% committed to offering support services to those who needed, and unlike some other organizations out there, I won't ever shed my status as a grassroots activist or forget that support also includes resource information gathering and sharing. 

So here's to a decade of OnceFallen.com, and hopefully, I'll survive another decade of this. Better yet, here's to the hope that in a decade, there won't even be a need for a site like mine because the registry is abolished.