Ex-con goes from prison to professors

Sean Mettille said he accumulated several college credit hours and, since leaving prison, enrolled in a class at Illinois Valley Community College in Oglesby.

Ex-con goes from prison to professors DAN CHURNEY, danc@mywebtimes.com Sean M. Mettille said the best thing about himself is that he likes to help people. However, he also has helped himself to things that belonged to other people. Such as an Ottawa street department pickup truck he once stole. Because of those and other thefts during the past several years -- crimes Sean now chalks up to "stupidity" -- the 25-year-old Ottawa native has been to prison. He is on parole, having left prison Jan. 26. His criminal record contains no drug, alcohol, violent or sexual crimes. Just stealing. The lack of substance abuse in his background might be attributed in part to the fact his stepbrother died several years ago from a heroin overdose. While incarcerated, Sean said he accumulated several college credit hours and, since leaving prison, enrolled in a class at Illinois Valley Community College in Oglesby. He got a 35-hour-per-week, low-wage job and started living at the Peru homeless shelter. He also signed up for another five mid-semester classes that begin in a few weeks. Planning to draw from his own experience and his desire to lend a hand to folks in trouble, Sean is going to school because he wants a career in social work. "I didn't waste my time in prison. I had a job there. I learned a lot. I read a lot. I love helping people. It's a wonderful feeling," Mettille said. "I have lost a lot of opportunities and friends and family because of going to prison, but I see a change in myself. I'm trying to show them I'm on the right path." However, that path has potholes, one of which Sean patched last week. With no home to which to go when he was paroled -- Sean said he was in foster homes as a youth and considers the Youth Service Bureau of the Illinois Valley his "extended family" -- he had to find a homeless shelter that would accept him. The Peru shelter did so, which also put him relatively close to IVCC. But Sean is plagued by diabetes and blood clots in his lungs -- afflictions that can cause medical emergencies the shelter said its staff is not equipped to handle. The shelter told Sean it could arrange for him to live at a 24-hour shelter with medical care. The catch is that the nearest such shelters are in Peoria or Rockford -- places Sean doesn't want to go because moving would mean giving up IVCC and the fledgling support system he has in La Salle County. Sean said he is set to receive about $3,000 in college aid in a few weeks, but would lose the money if he pulled out of IVCC. With the money, he wants to find an affordable apartment and buy a used car so problems of finding transportation to school are gone. Given his medical condition, Sean was no longer permitted as of March 5 to stay at the shelter, even though he was willing to stay despite the medical concerns. Sean then scrambled and obtained help from Ottawa Township to rent a room at the Sands Motel in Ottawa for one week. After that, the Rock Falls-based Tri-Counties Opportunities Council is paying for a down payment on an apartment in Peru and one month's rent. So he has a roof over his head. Barely. And he has conquered one of who knows how many more challenges to come. The short, bespectacled Sean said he understands it's natural for many people to have little sympathy for the troubles of an ex-convict and he knows he has to prove himself. He also wishes there were more resources in La Salle County to help someone who is fresh out of the joint to prove themselves. And he hopes his bad start will help with the good start he's planning as a human services counselor. "I'll draw on my jail experience and all the people I've talked to. Inmates don't want to talk to someone who has never been in trouble. Well, I've been in their predicament." But Sean hopes never to be in that predicament again. "I'm seeing the benefits of this," he said. "I can't go down that road again, because if I do, I know the sentence will be more severe. I've been lucky in the past."