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Addict's Priest Builds Hope Statewide
by Katy Moeller
The son of a successful Albany attorney, Brian Roe nearly drank and drugged his way to oblivion. He started with scotch whiskey as a teen, then got in to weed, LSD, coke, and heroin.
He fell into couch-surfing, trading drugs with friends who'd let him crash at their places. He got five years in prison for knocking over a drug store in a desperate attempt to get the pain relieving narcotic Percodan.
"It was embarrassing to my whole family," said Roe, who ended up back in prison 10 months after being released the first time. "I was way out of control."
One of the people who never gave up on Roe was the Rev Peter G Young, a Catholic priest in Albany's South End who has made it his life's work to help addicts who have been written off as hopeless.
The 74 year-old priest has devoted more than four decades to developing treatment programs, housing, and jobs for people struggling to get back on their feet after losing virtually everything. Most of those he works with have been in jail or prison, though that's not a prerequisite for his assistance.
His state-wide system of halfway houses, long-term housing, and businesses, including the Schuyler Inn in Menands and LeMoyne Manor in Syracuse, are managed by some of the ex-cons and addicts he calls "wounded healers", people just like Roe.
"He saved my life," said Roe, now 47, who has been sober since August 27, 1996. He is now married, has a 20 month old daughter and has reconnected with his 11 year-old son.
Despite a recent bout with prostate cancer, Young is still working around the clock to help addicts on the street and coming out of prison.
HEALTH PROBLEMS
His many friends and devotees worry about his health - he's already had heart bypass surgery, and survived two other bouts with cancer, including melanoma - though they know it's no use telling him to slow down.
"If he doesn't have 20 irons in the fire, he doesn't feel like he's doing anything," said Bishop Howard Hubbard of the Roman Catholic Diocese in Albany. "He's never really taken care of himself as much as he should. He neglects his own physical well-being."
Young keeps on top of things via cell phone, Palm Pilot, and e-mail, all of which he gracefully monitors while carrying on a meeting in his cozy, if cluttered, Eagle Street office in Albany. He keeps classical music on in the street level office, which is brimming with awards, plaques and framed articles.
In his wallet, he keeps the latest figures on the revenues of at the 48 businesses that Peter Young Housing, Industries and Treatment operates around the state. PYHIT, which is the umbrella corporation for the five nonprofits, is a $19 million operation at 90 sites.
"I do worry - that's why I carry all of those wins and losses in my pocket," Young said of PYHIT. "If I don't do that, I lose control."
NAVY SERVICE
He'd begun his master's program in finance when his Navy Reserve unit was activated during the Korean War. It was during his brief Navy stint that he decided to become a priest, eventually going to Christ the King Seminary at St Bonaventure in upstate New York.
"That turned out to be a mind-changing event," he said of his duty in the US Navy. "I got very upset at the way men were behaving in ports - grabbing women, disrespecting them, raping them. I got into all kinds of conflicts with my shipmates...The captain said, 'You know, we need a chaplain. You should be a chaplain.'"
His girlfriend wasn't thrilled to hear about his change of plans, recalled his childhood friend Howard Nolan, an Albany attorney who served 20 years in the state legislature. But she and Young stayed good friends, and he officiated at many of the marriages of her 11 children.
It took Young's father seven years to get over the fact that he'd decided to become a priest - that's how long he refused to speak to his only child. He'd hoped his son would carry forward the family name, a lineage of Peter Youngs that goes back to the Revolutionary War.
"I'm a mother's boy," he said, referring to his mother's
dedication
to community service. "We did a lot together . . . I'd say, 'I'm going
to a march with Martin Luther King in Boston.' And she'd say, 'Oh great,
I'll go with you.' "
HUBBARD CONNECTION
Hubbard has known Young since the 1960s, when they were
young priests
working in Albany's South End and living in the rectory of St. John's
Church. The neighborhood was a home or hangout for alcoholics, drug
users and prostitutes, a miserable mess of humanity that often sought
help from the church.
Hubbard focused his efforts on the emerging heroin problem,
establishing the residential treatment center Hope House. Young tackled
alcohol addiction, advocating for the decriminalization of public
intoxication and pushing for alcoholics to receive treatment instead of
incarceration.
"That took 34,000 meetings and 10 years," Young said of the
1976 law
change, which he counts as his singular most important contribution
toward addressing alcoholism. "That created an entire system of care -
if you don't lock them up, you've got to do something."
Back then, alcoholism was not recognized as a disease, nor
was it
treated as such. Few treatment options existed locally, so Young often
drove alcoholics having seizures and other symptoms to the state
hospital in Rochester and Catholic retreat sites in Dutchess County.
"Some people can be great talkers and have great vision,
but they
leave it to other people to do the grunt work. He's got the vision, but
he's also the worker bee," Hubbard said of Young, a big bear of a man
who was captain of his Siena baseball team and once dreamed of playing
pro ball like his childhood hero, Stan Musial.
"There's no task too menial to undertake if he thinks it's
going to
help a person. He'll take you for sandwich, drive you to the hospital or
sit down and make an appeal to a corporate board," Hubbard said.
Young once gave his own boots to a stranger who needed
them, then
walked through the snow in his stockinged-feet back to his car,
according to one of more than a dozen people who talked about the priest
and his philosophy in a 1999 documentary titled "Glidepath To Recovery."
"I have plenty of shoes," he said by way of explanation last week.
LOBBYING POLITICIANS
He hustled about the Capitol one afternoon last week,
stopping in to
see several legislators about buildings in New York City and other parts
of the state that he'd like to turn into housing for recovering addicts.
The greeting for the tall, friendly white-haired priest was the same
from all those he met: "Hey, Father! "
Young said if he doesn't keep legislators informed about
his projects
on the front end, he's liable to face serious not-in-my backyard
opposition sometime down the road. That has happened in the past, as
when he established homes for people with HIV and AIDS in the early
1990s.
The work he does with PYHIT is all volunteer. He isn't paid
a penny
for the work, which he does in addition to serving as parish priest for
Blessed Sacrament Church in Bolton Landing and Mother Teresa of Calcutta
Church in Albany.
Young has been successful over the years in establishing
businesses,
including cafes, copy shops and janitorial services, so that people in
his programs can get some job experience and something to put on their
resumes.
But his first idea - Inner City Driving School, a trucking
business -
went bust in a big way, saddling him with $200,000 in personal debt. He
spent 15 years working as chaplain at Mount McGregor Correctional
Facility to pay off that debt.
He believed that debt was fortuitous because he was able to
establish
alcohol and drug addiction programs in the prison.
"It worked out wonderfully that I went bankrupt," said
Young, who
gained a better understanding of the magnitude of the problem he was
combating. "Ninety-three percent of the people I met in [prison] intakes
had addiction problems."
And that's why he decided to expand his efforts beyond the
Capital
Region, bringing housing and job opportunities to other communities in
the state.
SCHUYLER INN
One of the biggest projects that Young undertook was the
1994
acquisition of the Schuyler Inn, a run-down motel that was renovated and
put back into operation.
The 110-bed motel, which is run by folks in Young's drug
treatment
and housing programs, offers transitional housing to veterans, people in
the prison work release program, families referred by the Homeless &
Traveler's Aid Society and anyone passing through the region who wants
to stay there.
A 15-week culinary course for anyone who is interested is
run in the
kitchen of the Schuyler Inn, which caters all kinds of private banquets
both onsite and offsite.
"We teach everything from food and kitchen safety to soups
and
sauces," said Frank Silvestri, head chef at the Schuyler Inn. "We also
have CIA [Culinary Institute of America] videos they can watch."
Silvestri could work anywhere, but he wants to be at the
Menands
motel. "It's Father's idea of working to keep the doors open for the next
man [who needs help]," said the former addict. "It helps keep it going."
Young doesn't seem to have much trouble getting others without past
addiction problems to help out as well.
Larry Sheffield, a basketball standout in the Capital
Region who
played pro basketball and went on to be a high-level executive at AT&T,
got drafted by Young last year.
Sheffield had sought Young's help in helping a family he
knows, then
asked what he could do to return the favor. He's been providing
oversight for the Schuyler Inn in Menands ever since, commuting daily
from his home in the Adirondacks.
"I have never worked so hard in all my life as I have
here," said
Sheffield, only half-joking about his volunteer work. "But I feel like
I'm giving back to the community. I think people of color need to give
back to the community.
He said Young has taught him humility. "What you see is what you get," said Sheffield, echoing a comment that many make about the priest.
And what is that people see?
"I see a person who is a giant of a man physically and
spiritually, a
man who has an incredible capacity for empathy and for serving," Hubbard
said.