Tiny homes in Alamance County will help exonerees get back into society

A farm in southern Alamance County, North Carolina, will soon be the site of tiny homes built for people who’ve been exonerated of crimes they did not commit. Getting there is a 30-mile drive southeast of Greensboro, through gently rolling hills and past small family farms, to the unincorporated community of Snow Camp.

The area is best known for its early Quaker settlers and as a campsite for Revolutionary War British General Charles Cornwallis. American Herman Husband who farmed in the region, helped lead a populist rebellion nearby that culminated in the Battle of Alamance in 1771.

That list of significant Snow Camp dwellers is set to continue at Second Act Farms with its green pastures dotted with goats, donkeys, turkeys and hens. A half dozen ducks paddle about in a small pond, and a tidy farmhouse backs into the nearby woods. These 21 acres are owned and operated by Alex Granados and Mandy Locke who left behind careers in Raleigh to begin new lives far from the hustle and bustle of big cities.

They’ve also decided to give back. Through a collaboration with the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence, they recently broke ground on two tiny homes to help people who were wrongfully imprisoned transition back into society. It’s a population Locke followed for some 20 years covering problems in the judicial system for the Raleigh News & Observer.

"As a journalist, we have to wall ourselves off to a certain degree and really can't involve ourselves in any real way," says Locke. "But by the time I had moved here, my career was sort of winnowing down, and I made a decision eventually that there were other things in life that I wanted to do."

Locke met the center’s executive director, Chris Mumma, during the first exoneration Mumma led in 2007, freeing Dwayne Dail who had served 18 years in prison before receiving a pardon from then Governor Mike Easley based on his actual innocence.

"After Dwayne got out, I went to Florida, where he had moved, and spent some time with him in those initial weeks," she says. "And I could sort of see him clamoring for some sort of stability. And it was haunting." 

Mumma says it’s difficult for somebody who did commit a crime, but it’s unbearable for somebody who did not.

"When you’re walking every day, every step you are taking, every breath you are breathing has the question of why? Why did this happen to me, why am I wearing these clothes, why am I eating this food, why am I following these rules, what did I do to deserve this?" says Mumma. "It’s a different perspective when you think about somebody being innocent versus somebody who committed the crime."

The North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence, like the state’s innocence movement itself, was inspired by the exoneration of Ronald Cotton after more than a decade in prison. Following his release in 1995, letters from incarcerated individuals petitioning for legal representation began pouring into Innocence Projects at UNC Chapel Hill and Duke.

Mumma says The Center was founded in 2000 to coordinate the intake of those cases, and she began working there the following year. She and her colleagues investigate innocence claims, work to hopefully advance them to litigation, and eventual freedom. They also use the stories they gather from exonerees to increase the reliability of convictions.

"And recently we've expanded our mission to also be support exonerees in their re-entry efforts, and that's because of our experience with the difficulties associated with walking from being incarcerated for something you didn't do to freedom," she says. "And we've lost a couple exonerees to that trauma, the trauma of freedom after the trauma of incarceration."

After reading an article about a reentry program in another country, Mumma quickly forwarded it to her friend Mandy Locke along with a question: Why couldn’t we do this here?

"And the 'what if' just really resonated with me," says Locke. "I mean, what if? Why couldn't Alex and I be that safe place? Why couldn't our farm give to them what we had so bountifully received?"

Setting off on a narrow trail through the woods behind the farmhouse, a tiny home soon comes into view in a small clearing — a simple but cheery wooden frame house with a front porch, vaulted loft ceilings, and lots of windows.

This is the first of what will soon be two Joseph Sledge Houses of Healing, named after a man, wrongfully convicted for double murders in rural North Carolina in the 70s who spent more than 36 years in prison filing innocence claims each year. The Center took up his case and, following 12 years of litigation, Sledge was exonerated and released. But Mumma says he became overwhelmed by the new 21st-century society he encountered on the outside, and eventually took his own life.  

Mumma says these homes are for slower reentry, giving exonerees the time to think about their future and better understand how society may have changed since their years in prison.

"A lot of times these exonerees are coming from medium custody, or even maximum custody to freedom, right," says Mumma. "So they're not going from maximum to medium to minimum to reentry programs that the prison have in expectation that they're going to be released from prison. They're just jumping right off the edge. This will give them time and also keep them away from influences they might have in society when they first get out." 

She says those influences have led to drug use, depression, and — in the case of exonerees like Sledge — tragic loss of life. To further guard against that, this house of healing will be used primarily for support people: visiting therapists, doctors, social workers, job trainers, family members, and friends they haven’t seen in a long time.

Much of the funding for this project came from money Sledge bequeathed to The Center upon his death —following a successful civil suit over his wrongful conviction — and strong community and corporate support.

A stone’s throw away a small plot of land has been cleared and the foundation drawn for another tiny home. It will have a small dining and living area in the front, separate bedroom in the back, small kitchen, half bath downstairs, and full bath off the bedroom. A deck will be added in the back for a private space and there'll be an outward-facing front porch.

Mumma says they have people struggling now that can use a fresh start, and more cases in litigation. She already has an exoneree, and a former Center client in mind to be the first resident here.

Recent exoneree Kevin Johnson says Mumma and her team were people who believed in him when nobody else did besides his family. The Durham native was wrongfully arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon following an officer shooting in 2007. Attempted murder was added to his charges the following year and he eventually spent his mid-twenties and his entire 30s in prison. He was exonerated in 2023 after 16 years and reunited with his family, including his son who was born two months before his arrest.

"First and foremost, I was one of the lucky ones that came home and had family — mother, father, siblings — had a lot of friends, also Miss Mumma," he says. "You know what I’m saying? So, I didn’t kind of start off in a negative side. I started off with a very positive side."

Johnson calls the new tiny homes an added security blanket, giving him confidence to succeed, and motivating him to move forward. He says for older exonerated prisoners without the family support he’s benefitted from, the tiny homes will have an even greater impact.

"It’ll be stress off your back," says Johnson. "You won’t be worrying about where you’re going to lay your head. Where your next meal will come from. You know what I’m saying? Because if you’ve got somewhere to stay, you’ve got somewhere to eat. Sometimes some people have got to choose from whether they’re going to get this hotel or eat for the rest of the week."

Locke says residents like Kevin will have full access to the property at Second Act Farms — fishing, feeding the animals, working the garden. She says soon there will be a community space for outdoor gatherings to talk and share experiences with people who’ve gone through similar challenges, and to know that they’re not alone.