What 100 Addicts Taught Me About Church with Bruce Deel | Recovery Vow Podcast

In this inspiring episode of The Recovery Vow, Eric Kennedy sits down with Bruce Deel, founder and CEO of City of Refuge, to explore how a six-month assignment turned into a 28-year mission of radical compassion.

What began as an accidental ministry in a struggling Atlanta neighborhood quickly transformed into one of the nation’s most impactful recovery communities. Bruce shares how he and his wife answered an unexpected call, welcoming in drug addicts, homeless families, sex workers, and returning citizens and how their faith led to the birth of a “city within a city,” offering housing, vocational training, trauma care, and long-term recovery for thousands.

With stories of restoration, like Rufus: a man once addicted, angry, and homeless who now serves others during the holidays—this episode reveals what’s possible when people are given safety, structure, and second chances.

Whether you’re in recovery, supporting someone who is, or dreaming of starting your own mission, this conversation will leave you inspired to step into the mess and be the refuge. Subscribe to The Recovery Vow for more real stories of transformation, faith, and the power of community.

Learn more about Bruce and City of Refuge: ⁠cityofrefugeatl.org⁠

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• Transcript

  [Music] Hey, thanks for listening to Recovery Vow podcaster. Thanks for joining us today. On today's episode, I'm going to be sitting with Pastor Bruce Deal with City of Refuge. Now, in this episode, you're going to hear us talk about some of the folks and how they transition from the street of Atlanta, streets of Atlanta, and into what it's like to be a resident uh in City of Refuge. You'll hear a couple of stories from Pastor Bruce. Whether it's uh you know the percentage of children that are helped there, maybe it's the workforce that they go through or what city refuge just looks like and how they serve that community. There's some really successful numbers that you'll hear come out of there about people going back into the workforce, people that find soiety and just how they network and connect. And so I hope you'll tune in and just listen to this entire podcast. He's got a lot of great things to say. Welcome to the Recovery V podcast. I'm your host, Eric Kennedy. What made you start City City of Refuge and how impactful has it become? Yeah. Uh, so we started City of Refuge 28 years ago, sort of by accident, uh, but providentially. So, I was on staff at a church north of Atlanta and was asked to go downtown to a little church in Atlanta and shut it down, close the church, and sell the property. And I'd been in ministry about 14 years at the time. And I was given an opportunity to go down and do that. And so I thought, well, this will be a good experience. I can speak every Sunday for 6 months and wrap this up and sell the church and uh move back to my safe suburban neighborhood. And it been something you've done before? No, never done it before. It was just uh I was on loan from a church to uh go down and do that and I decided it it might be something fun. Uh so my wife and I had four little girls at the time and I went down and fifth or sixth Sunday there a young lady in crisis walked in walked down the aisle at the end of the service and said I've been hooking and stripping 14 years. Can you help me get out of the life? And so we did some things for her and over the course of the next week uh she started introducing uh our church to some folks who actually paying customers of hers in the sex industry and they came the next Sunday and accepted Christ. And uh the next Sunday four more people in Christ showed up. The next Sunday, 10 more showed up. And Eric, four months into a six-month assignment, we thought we walked in and there literally a hundred drug addicts, alcoholics, homeless people had invited each other to church and we're looking at us um saying, "Can you help us?" And so my wife Ron and I decided that this was not a six-month assignment. It was a rest of our life assignment. So that's how City Refuge started 28 years ago. So, I'm I'm assuming that when you guys got there and you had no idea these people were going to walk through the doors, did the church that you were planning on, you said you were about to you're trying to close it down, it have like a recovery program? I mean, any No, the church No, the church was started in 1969. A ministry was started called Mission Impossible and literally just rented a couple houses downtown Atlanta to house people in crisis, homeless, drug addicts. uh but it had sort of transitioned to a more traditional church and uh those folks who had come to know the Lord through that church over the years had gotten married moved to the suburbs. So by the time we got there there were just a couple dozen folks left that were not individuals in recovery or crisis. It was you know they were stable uh married uh nuclear families that were still there that loved the mission but it was not an outreach program of any type or recovery program of any type when we got there. And then when these people walk through the door and they ask that big of a question like what do you do what can you do to help us? What what did you do to help? Yeah. Well, we had to learn on the fly. I mean, you know, my dad was a a pastor and a missionary for my entire life. So, I'd seen a lot of missions type work and a lot of recovery type work through him. So, I just we just started with the basic essentials of life. You know, we started with food and clothing and shelter and some counseling. uh we just did what we knew to be done as we evolved and learned more and more about what recovery looks like and what independent self sustain sustainability looks like after someone's come out of a trauma informant. So it was a on the job learning experience for sure. I bet so and I know that's tough because especially if you guys don't have that in your past or in your history and you're doing it from scratch. I mean, but you at least you're doing something, so it's not like you you bound to fail at it. Um, did you have you said like maybe 10 to 15 in that first four months? Am I am I saying that right? Well, we had uh in the first four months over a hundred people showed up that were in crisis and and transition and coming out of homelessness or poverty or returning sentences from incarceration or addiction. So over a hundred folks showed up that fourth month when we walked in one Sunday morning. You guys were doing something right though, Bruce. I mean, the word was spreading on the street um that they could come to you. Not and it wasn't like that was for a handout. It was for some kind of a plan. It sounds like Yeah. You know, it's it it when we reflect we were doing something right at the time all we knew we were doing is showing up having worship caring for people on them. We were feeding them after service and we were we did open a clothing closet. started some basic essentials kind of things, but the truth of the matter is all of this was a foundation being built for what would eventually become city of refuge. And that was all just a providential kind of work of God that was taking place that honestly at the moment we weren't aware of. We just knew some folks were showing up asking for help. Tell me a story about one person. Uh you don't have to say their name, but maybe it's a male or female from that from that first interaction. Uh, is there a success story from that group of hundred in that first four months that you think back and say, "I remember them. I remember them because of this." Yeah. Well, we've got a lot of those stories. You know, Rufus stands out. He doesn't mind us sharing his name. And Rufus was sexually molested when he was 12 years old and ended up spending 25 years in the street as a as a male homosexual prostitute. and uh was a drug addict, an alcoholic in and out of jail and uh was very defiant when we first met him. Very uh negative about life, negative about Christianity, negative about Caucasian people. So, he had it all built up, but we just decided we're going to continue to love him and care for him. Now, 28 years later, he lives in housing that's provided by us. He's clean and sober, has been for a dozen years now. uh loves Jesus passionately, serves people out of his own home. Uh every holiday of the year, he cooks a meal for a couple hundred people and serves individuals um in the neighborhood where he lives that are still in difficult life environments. Um and so it, you know, it's one of those things. It was we were more than 14 years of loving on and caring for Rufus before he finally made a decision to see life change take place. And so now this many years later, it's a lot of fun to reflect on where he was, how he was when we first met him, more importantly, where he is and how he is today. I mean, I I've done some research on on on you guys. I was thinking it was mostly all female at City Refuge now. Is that is that right? Or you just have a a bigger audience with the females? Yeah. Well, initially when we first opened housing uh 27 years ago, it was for men. So our initial shelter was 65 beds that we opened up for men. Out of that we met a lot of women in the streets that were having difficulty and realized there was a der of beds, not enough beds for women and children in the city. So we did transition some and a lot of our focus for a long time was women and children. And now we serve both populations. So we've got uh housing for women, we got housing for moms with kids, we've got housing for men coming out of addiction or incarceration or our veterans. So it uh over time it's evolved where we it's evolved to where we serve men, women, and children. How many you have with you right now, Bruce? Yeah. How many? Yeah, we house about 300 uh between the men, women, and children on a nightly basis. And then we built a 47 unit apartment community across the street. Uh so all 47 of those units are full. That's another 200 or so folks that live there. Uh we built five additional homes on adjacent property here. We have families living there. So on any given night, we have somewhere around 5 to 600 folks that live in properties that we operate uh where we care for them in those kind of supportive environments. For my audience that's listening to this, some of them may still be in some type of addiction. Some of them may be walking through recovery together with their spouse or, you know, individually. Um, what would I expect if if I was looking for help from City of Refuge today and it it's it's Friday and I made decision and I and I make it to your front door, what what's tonight going to look like for me? Well, as long as um as long as you present yourself in an attitude of you want help and you're not here just because you need a bed, right? So, we're we're not a shelter. We are a transition center. And so if you're ready to see some life transformation take place, then we'll do an intake interview. You'll be given a bed. You'll be given a shower. You'll be given a hot meal tonight. And because it's a weekend, then for the weekend, we'll take care of it. On Monday, you'll meet with one of our intake coordinators. Interview will take place. We'll do a criminal background check. We'll do a drug test. We'll do those things just so we know where we are. We rarely turn anybody away, but we need we do need all those details to know what the path forward is going to look like. And so we and once that happens then you'll do uh you know a staff meeting you'll meet with multiple folks folks around housing addiction recovery trauma informed care sexual abuse if you've experienced that and then IP and then by July service plan will be put together for you and you'll be fully fully immersed within 48 hours of the first uh Monday that you're here. What if I need detox? Do you guys take folks that are you know I know you said that you take a drug test but what if what if I'm detoxing from my drug of choice? Yeah. So, if you're detoxing from heroin or alcohol, then we'll send you to a 7-day detox center that we partner with here in metro Atlanta. If you're detoxing from anything else, we actually do that inhouse. Uh we do the 7-day detox offsite and then we will engage with you once you're out of that program. But other drugs we take to take care of here on campus. And then how long is this process? Let's say that I make it through the weekend and I start my counseling on on Monday. How long is the process? Um am I Do I have to commit to a certain amount of time with you? Is it free to go whenever you want or what are you signing up? You know, what am I signing up for? Yeah, the vast majority of folks who engage in our services are here voluntarily. So, if they're here voluntarily, they can leave at any time they want to. But the program is generally set up from 6 to 12 months. Again, that depends on the level of addiction, how long someone's been using, what the drug of choice was, and what the other contributing factors are. Is there a mental health issue? Is there an aptitude issue? Is there educational challenges? Is there a family support system in place? So, all of those things factor in as to how long that journey might be. We've had folks graduate and leave and go back and be successful after 3 months. We've had one resident that lived on our campus for four years before she was really at a place where she could establish herself in society again. So, we don't have a deadline on that, but ideally it's a 6 to 12 month. I mean, and and I'm assuming she's safe for 4 years because it just felt like home, you know, just Yeah. Well, it felt like home and the trauma she'd experienced was so dramatic and traumatic that she she just could not re-engage outside of the safety of this environment. Uh, and then she actually now works for us and and to this day, she's now three years into employment after four years of living with us. And she still will only speak to myself and my daughter that ran the program. She still has this fear of people in life and she's been unable to overcome some of the trauma of her past. So, you know, Eric, some people think recovery means you move to this place where you're independent, you're successful, you move on. For some people, they need support the rest of their life, right? And and being honest about that and willing to admit that has helped our organization, I believe, our ministry be more effective because we're not setting a deadline on your quote unquote recovery. No, cuz I mean uh I'm always going to be in recovery. I'm always going to be in process. I mean I I'll hit 15 years in September, but I mean 15 years is just like day one, you know? It's it's it's something I got to work on. Um, I know this is a heavy question, but I'm going to ask it because and I don't want this come across as too much of an interview, but I mean people are going to listen to this and they're going to start thinking about people they may know that have need of this or need to know about this. But how many women come through um that are pregnant? You know, the the probably 50% of those who move on our campus are are pregnant or have really young children with them. uh 75% of the women we have served over the past 28 years have had some sort of sexual abuse or trauma in their life. So there's always a lot of sexual issues uh with the women that come to us for the recovery process. How do y'all help with you know if if she has children you have beds for the children too or the children get to stay with their moms while they're detoxing and working your program? Well, no, they they'll stay in a safe environment while detox takes place, but then we believe that separating the mothers from the children actually adds to the trauma. And so we have uh we have a number of facilities that are for mothers with children. So we have three housing units on campus for moms with kids. Uh out in uh Calapusa, Georgia, we have 15 residential opportunities for moms with children. So like today we have 18 mothers with children that are that have suffered sexual abuse also connected to their addiction or alcoholism. And then we have another 36 beds that are for mothers with children, single moms with children that come out of domestic violence or homeless situations. But we always if it's viable, we try to keep the children with the mother. And and you've gotten babies that are newborns up to I guess they can stay with you until they graduate high school. Well, females can stay with us to the age of 18. Uh with males, it's a little bit more of a challenge because of our campus setup. The number of children we have. Uh we accept boys up to the age of 14. Uh so over that some of the risk factors that are involved there are not we're not comfortable with that. Well, we're actually working on some housing for that now, but we set boys up to 14. You say risk factors. Are you saying that because they're going to have that's going to be the age or opportunity where they may go out and experience some of the things that their their mom and dad went through? Um because they just they start having that freedom, I guess. Is that what you mean by risk? Well, some of that, but if they've been in in difficult environments, abusive environments, drug addiction environments, homeless environments, sexual abuse environments, often at that 12, 13, 14 age, they start to act out things that they've either experienced or witnessed. And so because we have such a large population of infants and toddlers, we don't want those uh actions by a 12 or 13 or 14 year old to negatively impact a toddler that might be on campus because that young man has not yet figured out how to deal with the trauma he experienced. This this organization is called City of Refuge. What What made you come up with the name City of Refuge? It's a Is it the way that it's set up because it's uh I guess like a city inside of Atlanta? Like is it its own thing? kind of give me a we'll we'll I'll ask the producers to put some pictures up um and we'll add your website to our our our description in our bio, but give us uh if you can paint a picture of what city refuge looks like. Yeah. So, it's actually an Old Testament reference. Uh in the Old Testament, there were six cities of refuge. Uh three on the east side of the Jordan, three on the west side, and they were set up as safe havens. So if an individual took a life, right, either intentionally self-defense, a manslaughter, they could actually run to that city of refuge to present their case to the high priest. So all these cities were set up within half a day's journey of all the residents in the land or 30 miles. So you could if you were sprinting for your life, you could get there in half a day. The avenger of blood could chase that individual. If the avenger of blood caught them before they got to the city of refuge, they could take their life legally. But if that individual got inside the city of refuge, housing was provided, food, clothing, employment, they would present their case to the high priest. And if the high priest decided they were innocent of murder, intentional murder, then they could live inside that city the rest of their life and the avenger of blood could no longer take their life. But that high priest died, all sins were absolved, and they were now free to go. And so for us, the city of refuge is there are people running for their life. So they're running from addiction, they're running from alcohol abuse, they're running from domestic violence, they're running from sex trafficking, they're running from poverty. If they will get to our campus, we will provide food, clothing, shelter, uh counseling, mental health assessment and treatment, everything they need in order to establish them as potential successful people in life. And we get to tell them that the high priest has died once and for all. Right? So everything has now been absorbed in their life and and once they have the resources they need, they can move back into society and be successful moving forward. So that's where City of Refuge comes from. It's really cool. That's powerful. If if you were going to uh paint a picture for what it visually looks like when people get there or for people that's you know the audience that's listening today, what what does it look like you on the campus or you know what does your property look like? How big is it? Yes. So we have 8 acres of land with 5 acres under roof. So, 210,000 ft of warehouse space. Uh, when we got it, it was just simply empty warehouse space, concrete floor, brick walls. So, I told our interior designers and construction folks, I want it to look like a little city. And so, literally, as you walk the interior hallways, it looks like a streetscape. So, we've got houses built out inside our campus, a clinic, a school, a vocational training program, a commercial dining facility, a restaurant, vocational training and auto technician and a welding center and culinary arts. Uh, so once you walk through the gates, um, security will greet you in a friendly manner, figure out where you need to head, and it's like you're in your own little city, uh, figuring out what the next piece of your journey looks like. Your journey looks I'm glad you explained it that way. the pictures I've seen before cuz some of there's a group here from Stevens Creek that'll come visit, but I've seen some pictures before and it's like this is in this is crazy. It looks really cool the way that you've done that. You know, this the frontage and all that being right inside. I I love it. I want to come. You know, you and I have kind of connected over the last couple years as I've, you know, u grown in in the Church of God, church world, but um the programs that that the that the families get there are are powerful. Do you do you know a percentage of uh people that come through that are I don't want to say they're married still. I mean, I'm sure that's been rocky, but is there a percentage that are coming in that are married or trying to save their marriage, you know, if they get through this? Yeah, it's a small percentage, honestly, of those we serve because usually by the time they get to us, if they've been married, that's already fallen apart and sort of beyond repair. Uh, but we but in a community and in our church on campus, we have a a large number of folks that show up that are married that their marriage might be in crisis. So certainly marriage counseling and uh resources and tools to help impact and improve marriages are part of what we do. U unfortunately most of the folks are not married when they get here as a result of things that have happened. One of the things that we are really aggressive on and proactive about is the students in our school and daycare is teaching them what healthy marriage looks like and how that if they'll make good decisions in advance, they won't have to go through a marriage recovery somewhere down the road. And so we're really big on our on our elementary, middle, high school students learning those principles and values early in their life. I think it's really important and I mentioned that because um I would love Well, you're a nonprofit, right, Bruce? I mean, yeah. So, I mean, yes, sir. Do you accept insurance or when people get there, it's paid for by your nonprofit? We don't we don't accept insurance. We raise all of our money privately in order to cover the programs. And we don't no one pays anything. No one's charged anything for any of our services. It's all provided to them. I can't remember. Did I send you a copy of the book? I know that you're you're you are a supporter of uh the recovery vow. Um but did I send you a copy of the book that I wrote with it? No, I have not received a copy. I'm going to send you a couple copies. Um this is this is the book. It's it's written as a workbook and I know that you know you just mentioned that there's not a lot of couples that come through, but if any of those men and women plan on getting married, this is something they can take with them so I can catch them, you know, before they transition out. um they can they can walk away with a tool and I want to give it to them for free. We're a nonprofit uh and and the money we raise we we poured into creating these workshops. I'm going to Texas next week to teach a workshop there for um you know uh um relationships uh after addiction. So uh what it's like living in recovery with with this with your new person. Um, so I would love to if it's okay with you as connect after this podcast and we'll talk about um how I can provide that to City of Refuge and you've you know you've you've supported us and we truly truly truly appreciate that um your your gift and um I just want to make sure I give that back to you any way I can. Would people um I'm think I'm trying to think about how I want to ask this question. There's going to be um a graduation ceremony, right? I remember when I went through treatment, you know, we we kind of what we call chipped out, like once you get your 30-day chip, I think it was 30-day chip. You know, you you you're done here. Is there a party you guys throw every month to celebrate wins? How do you you know, mark uh their time or they going to meetings every day? You know, what is what are some of the programs that you guys offer? So, we celebrate a lot of different ways around here. uh every time someone reaches 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, there's there's horns blowing and balloons and celebrations in the hallway. Uh we have celebrate recovery that meets on our campus for our residents that are part of that. They do a great job with the celebrations as well. And so we're always trying to look for ways to affirm people, to build them up, to acknowledge them when they take those strides. Uh when we have people graduating from the residential program, not just connected specifically to their addiction, when they graduate, it's a big service in the sanctuary staff shows up. We acknowledge what they've done. We talk about all the classes they might have taken, certifications they've received. So celebration's a huge part of what we do. When people are ready to move out of our facility, out of our program, and into a place of independence and society, for sure. I heard you mention uh welding and things like that. What kind of programs can the the men and women take there and u kind of do as a trade I guess when they get out? Yeah. So in vocational training we have auto technician, welding, uh we have culinary arts, cyber security, coding, uh customer service, hospitality. So uh six or seven different organ uh different opportunities in vocational training. Last year we were able to help put 807 people into the workforce in metro Atlanta at livable wage uh vocational opportunity. So it's uh it's one of the critical pieces as you know coming out of recovery coming out of addiction uh often people their job skills are diminished or if they started at a really young age their their vocational aptitude is limited. So if we don't provide them with a path forward that will provide a steady income, they often revert back to bad behavior. So it's one of the it's one of the key things that we've learned over the years is we got to equip them uh so they can be successful moving forward. Some of the relapse and the the revert back to bad behavior that comes just from lack confidence or what's some of the key things you've seen that have brought people back to you? Yeah. Well, I think, you know, two of the key things that cause people to relapse um are lack of safe and affordable housing and lack of a livable wage. You know, so if you don't have somewhere steady to live and you're bouncing around, the mind starts to play tricks on you. If you don't have an income where you can pay rent, buy your groceries, have gas in your car, then behavior sometimes starts to falter because you got to figure out a way to get money. Well, if you if you engage in illegal behavior to get money, that generally going to lead you to illegal behavior as it relates to substance abuse, right? So, that that housing opportunity and employment opportunity along with their faith really are the three things that we think are critical elements to long-term success. You said 800 people got jobs last year. 807 people last year, 805 the year before. That seems like a huge win from a percentage standpoint. Um, how would you is there a measurable on that in comparison to people that were there last year and the ones that had a successful transition into workforce? Well, the the 87 that went into the workforce, not all of those lived on our campus who went through our programs, some of those were community uh individuals who live in our neighborhood but still needed that assistance. So, it's hard to sort of equate that to the number of residents. Well, look, I if it could have if it was one, it was a win, but you had 807. So, that's that's huge. Um, Pastor Bruce, will I see you at Elevate or will you be um coming up North Georgia? You know, I speak at a retreat in Colorado the first week of June for the last 13 years. And so, I would not be at Elevate because I'll be back there again. Uh, I was hoping to see you then. Um, I do want to connect with you um in the coming weeks. I really want to one if it's okay. Am I allowed to come visit? Okay. I'd love to come visit and I want to I don't want to mail these books. I want to bring some and just come and and and talk about maybe what I can offer um u the family families of um City of Refuge. Yeah, we'd love that. Look, I I do want to take a minute um and just say thank you so much for I know we tried to do this before, but you're a very busy man. Uh it means a lot to me that you jumped on this today um last minute and and did this podcast with me. I know it was very short, sweet, but I wanted to just give the platform of what you were doing so that our listeners can hear um the stories of people that are, you know, this is what it looks like when we're out there as as addicts or people that are just struggling or whatever. this is who we're talking to when we call where we're talking to the the Bruce deals, the pastor Brucees out there that are just answering the phone and and and giving us somewhere to go. And there may be somebody that's listening that you you will be the road that they take to find that, you know, like well, talk about getting sober. It's a lot of people find a different way just like trying different churches or different gyms. I've said this before, but you know, this City of Refuge is probably a place that people need to know about um especially the people that might be listening to this podcast. So again, I wanted to say thank you for that. If uh if you're listening this podcast and you want to uh connect with Pastor Bruce, City of Refuge, I'm sure you can go and find them online. Um if you'd like to connect with us, we'd love for you to subscribe to our podcast. You can go to YouTube, you can check us out on all of our social medias, or you can uh email me direct if you need to connect. Pastor Bruce, what's a good email they can they can reach you um if they want to email you direct? Yeah, they can email me at bruce cityofreuggeatl.org. All right, perfect. Thank you so much and we will see you guys again very