Biography of Father Peter Young
From a very humble beginning as a young parish priest in one of Albany, New York's most impoverished neighborhoods, founder and C.E.O. of PYHIT, Father Peter G. Young's career epitomizes the very essence of a man with a vision. His program is a one of a kind treatment and job training center for individuals in recovery based on the "Three Legged Stool" approach to recovery.
The philosophy of PYHIT dates back to the late 1950's when Father Young worked as Chaplain of the Albany County Jail and later in the 70's as Chaplain at the Mt. McGregor Correctional Facility in upstate New York.
Statistics show that over seventy percent of people in jails and prisons were there because of their abuse of alcohol and drugs. Father Young introduced and fought for the passage of Senate Bill 7783 and Assembly Bill 9178 in the New York State Legislature in the early 1960' s. It introduced for the first time in the history of New York State provisions relating to the emergency admission and care of intoxicated persons. The bill amended Section 240.40 of the Penal Law by removing public intoxication as a violation of the Penal Law. A pioneer in alcohol treatment and with the cooperation of Governor Rockefeller, Father Young developed the first alcohol crisis center and extended care unit in New York State with the cooperation.
Working within the New York State Correctional Services, gave Father Young a better understanding of inmates and the life cycle they get caught up in. Father Young founded the Alcohol and Substance Abuse Treatment program within the New York State Department of Corrections. This program has served as a model for treatment. Experience had shown him that many inmates were paroled with a foundation of recovery but no job or housing" These inmates would quickly resort to doing what they knew best to survive on the streets. The result would be relapse, eventual reincarceration and the continued overcrowding of the prison system.
This model is now used across the state and country. In fact, Mt. McGregor Correctional Facility in upstate New York became the first prison in the country devoted entirely to treatment for substance abuse and alcoholism. Once the inmate's sentences are completed, many are paroled to live at the Altamont Program or one of their many half-way houses where they continue to attend ANNA meetings and participate in job training and therapy. Having a place to live and the chance to learn a skill upon release keeps ex-offenders with an addiction problem from falling back to old habits and the "revolving door cycle".
The Schuyler Inn, a bankrupt hotel that was an eyesore to the town of Menands, has become a clean and friendly establishment. that serves as a training site for the Altamont Program in both the hotel and restaurant industry. "More importantly," stated Jim Torriani, a veteran Parole Officer in New York State since 1979, "they train for jobs that in reality ex-offenders can actually obtain and the volunteers in the program do a very thorough job of follow through." Upon completion men and women return to their respective communities across New York State.
The effectiveness of the vocational program epitomizes Father Young's "Three Legged Stool" approach - Treatment, Housing and Employment. The Altamont Program offers all three and can be measured by its job placement rate of 87%. Its track record won it the "Model JTP A Program of the Year" award in 1990. This award is given each year by the New York State Department of Labor to programs meeting the following criteria; uniqueness in meeting the needs of the local community; coordination of services and funding with local providers; attainment of certain measurable outcomes; and application of program in other areas of the state. Attention to program effectiveness has produced a four-year post-graduate recidivism rate of less than ten percent.
The beneficiaries of the program are not just the men and women who are being serviced from every county in New York State, but the taxpaying citizens who profit from the programs cost effectiveness. Hundreds of men and women have graduated into society as taxpaying citizens leading successful lives including: state workers, counselors, accountants, hotel management, lobbyists, and entrepreneurs. They have continued to successfully maintain their sobriety and volunteer their services to the youth of communities about the pitfalls of drug and alcohol use.
Father Young has accomplished all this through the Wounded Healer philosophy, based on the belief that those suffering from addictions, who have succeeded in recovery, can best extend their hand to the next person and help them begin the process. The programs operations have not posed a threat to the community. Instead, this approach has demonstrated the vision, commitment and ability to assist drug and alcohol abusers to recover and to re-enter society in a positive manner as productive tax paying citizens.
(The following essay was compiled by John Hartigan and released with the July 2004 newsletter)
The Father Peter Young Story
You probably know Father Peter Young. Thousands of people in the Capital Region, in the state and across the country, know him for his work as a crusader for the downtrodden in society who suffer from chemical dependencies, homelessness and troubled lives. This year, we celebrate his life with 45 years spent in active ministry as a priest and as a forceful leader and innovator in promoting recovery programs.
Every day, dozens of men and women knock on his door, call him by phone or E-mail him, asking for his help. He just can't say "no." One way or another, he tries to help. As impossible as it may sound, he wants to solve everyone's problems.
He uses the strengths of his personality, exuberance, passion, humor and persistency, to lead the charge for reforms and humanistic treatment to produce "taxpayers" within the ranks of people who otherwise might roam the streets, commit crimes and be remanded to a criminal justice sentence that offers little promise for recovery. His story now unfurls.
A Vision Without Blinders
During his priestly ministry for 45 years, nothing has deterred Father Peter Young in the pursuit of his vision "to create taxpayers." Creating taxpayers is the avowed mission of PYHIT, his statewide network of Treatment, Housing and Employment programs. Nothing has deterred him in seeking solutions that offer hope to those who seek recovery. Bouts with malignant melanoma, crippling arthritis, open heart surgery, a deteriorating knee requiring surgery and other physical maladies, merely interrupted his momentum. Prostrate cancer identified recently, that required chemicals and radiation treatment, hardly disrupted his busy schedule.
Financial straps have almost strangled his programs many times in the past. Even his age at 74, when many of us have long since retired, hardly makes any dent in his 18-hour days in the work he loves. His vision has no blinders. It is directly related to his faith and his contentment with a priesthood that is his call to serve the people of God, especially the poor in spirit and the poor in pain. That call came to him 45 years ago.
Snapshot Of A Full Life
Over that 45 years of service, Father Young, in addition to duties as a parish priest and pastor, taught in high school, served as chaplain for various associations and in the prison system for 33 years, founded dozens of organizations and non profits, chaired or was president of dozens of organizations involved with treatment, housing, shelters, and recovery services. His resume lists about 40 recognition awards for community service, leadership, dedicated public service, human rights initiatives, and for his efforts to deal with the problems of alcoholism and addictions. In 2001, Father was ranked number two in the Top Ten New Yorkers Survey as conducted by the Empire State Report, a prestigious independent magazine.
Earlier Years A Foundation
Peter was the only child, born and raised on Grove Avenue in Albany. He was favorably influenced by both parents to accept people of all races and religions. Sadly, he saw prejudice in team sports early in his life and countered by joining an all black traveling baseball team. At CBA high school and at Siena College, he showed remarkable athletic abilities and prowess in baseball and football. He was a popular student leader. After college, he was called to serve; there his life took a new course. Using Father's words, "During the Korean War, I served in the Navy. I found it repulsive that my shipmates were taking advantage of women, and I tried to stop their sexual fun. When I told my captain that I was upset with the way these women were being disrespected, he suggested I become a chaplain. Certainly, I owe him my vocation. He put me on the right path."
After leaving the Navy, he discovered that his degree from Siena College did not credential him to enter the seminary. And so, he pursued language studies in Ottawa, Canada , moving on to St. Bonaventure College for five years of study, leading to ordination as a priest. It was in the seminary that Scripture touched his mind and heart with the love of the poor. He found that the eight beatitudes were particularly meaningful. Father Young finished his studies intending to do his best in living what each beatitude taught., meekness, resignation, poverty of spirit, mercifulness, peace making, justice and humility. Clearly, the work he was about to undertake would test him in countless ways and would require rereading the beatitudes over and over again.
Life On The Streets
His first assignment as a new priest in 1959 brought him to the inner city of Albany, at St. John's church on Green Street. The church was smack in the midst of neighborhoods harboring alcoholics, addicts and prostitutes. This part of the city was known as the "combat zone."
Father Young described it this way, "St. John's was a gravity flow" people from smaller towns and cities with drug or alcohol abuse problems eventually ended up there. It was considered a place by police, where people with drug problems were "forced" to go "people who are homeless and run out of smaller towns."
He single-mindedly and often single handedly, waged a battle against the forces that used the criminal justice system exclusively as the sole answer to the problems of addicted people. Incarceration was their answer.
At first, he traveled the local streets picking up addicts and bringing them to hospitals; he started a food pantry and shelter in the rectory, attended court sessions where the addicted person faced a judge, and for years, attended the many needs of people ravaged by their addictions.
In the those early days, Father met daily with the local judge assigned to disposition of the public intoxication cases, the 24040 counts. The judge would give them an alternative, "Go to jail or go with Father." And then he would give them a bed, a roll, and put them on the floor, put them anywhere. Thus, a program began to evolve.
He went off to Akron, Ohio, for months to work with Bill Wilson, co-founder of AA and Sister Ignatia, a Sister of Charity of St. Augustine. Sister Ignatia became his hero for her steadfast work with alcoholism including shaping the hospital concept used to this day.
Heavy Duty Problems
With the growing number of people cared for at St. John's, Father turned to others to augment what he was doing. He found friends in the State government who might dispense an opening to give one of Father's friends, a break with a job. He worked out an agreement with the cemetery to hire them and they painted the fence again and again and again. He tried training minorities to be truck drivers but faced stiff industry competition. It worked for a while. His personal debts grew and grew as he mounted program after program.
Time To Get Another Job
Helping so many people cost him plenty. With debts reaching $200,000 and bankruptcy looming in 1976, his bishop help him secure a full time position as chaplain at Mount McGregor Correctional Facility. Here he worked for 15 years. In total, he spent 33 years as a chaplain since he had worked part time in jails for 18 years.
When he left the correctional system in 1992, about 41,000 inmates were enrolled in alcohol and drug treatment programs that he helped establish. He takes great comfort in the interdenominational dimensions of his work in the prisons as well as in the services provided by PYHIT. His income as a priest and as a chaplain allowed him to retire his debt.
Learning Behind Bars
Daily contacts with convicts made him acutely aware of the feelings of hopelessness of people incarcerated and frozen in place. He soon realized that many of the inmates were remanded to the cell world because they did crazy things while under the influence of alcohol and drugs.
So he began seminars on addiction and recovery, enlisting active involvement of inmates able to act as counselors and advisees to others seeking an out to their addictions.
Call-out programs started in the Chaplain's office. When Parole recognized the certificate for that program, the men got some time off of their sentence. Soon it became rush and the program was expanded. Complete cooperation was a condition for a certificate of completion letter. Father thought, "if you can get the body, the mind will follow." Inmates were trained and they became the "wounded healers," running all of the programs. Ultimately, this concept became the model for the ASAT (Alcohol and Substance Abuse Treatment program,) used throughout the New York State Correctional System. Father became the spokesman for 41,000 inmates in treatment in the prison system, their advocate and mentor as they sought help with their addictions.
Wounded Healers Pay Their Dues
In a speech before the US Department of Justice, January 29,2001, Father Young described wounded healers in these terms,
"Now, we prefer to use that because we try to get the people who are wounded to then in their changing of the negative to positive to be the healers and we really form groups, we form associations, we form ways that we can reward them. We try to; if we can, get them to each one teach one. We get them to carry the message. Now, that turned out to be a great happy kind of thing because it gives them a pride, a distinction, and esteem, and all of that that makes their recovery feel important."
But the personal struggle of the person trying to recover, whether in prison or on the outside, is a life and death decision, over and over again. People in prison don't stand much chance if they leave prison without taking very serious steps toward recovery and pursue after-care programs when exiting the prison system.
As Father Young worked with about 150 walk-ins at St. Johns, he relied on 200 volunteers to work with him. They operated a variety of programs, educational, recreational, day camp, Babe Ruth, Pop Warner and others. He continued his research into the problems of addictions, their causes, incidences and the approaches used to solve the problems. He soon realized that a life wrecked by alcoholism and drug addiction, could take a life time of work to attain sobriety. People released from prison, on parole, even with some foundation in making a recovery exited prison with no place to go and no place to turn. For most, they would revert to crime, doing best what they proved to be good at. Back to prison, matter of fact, back and forth like a revolving door. He once said, "If a person becomes desperate, he'll soon become dangerous, unless his or her life is turned around."
His Three Legged Stool
Father became convinced that a successful recovery required three supporting systems, all interlocked in a seamless progression of services, Treatment, Housing and Employment, with Education as a backstop. He visualized it as a three legged stool. Criminal Justice System clients have difficulty getting their first job after incarceration. PYHIT would provide within its network of industries, a training ground as their chance to prove their commitment to recovery. 
"The stool can't stand without all three legs," he says with conviction. Therefore, all of his programs evolved over the years to make sure that all three supportive systems complement each other, once a person freely enrolls in a recovery program. His three-legged stool, fashioned like the old milk stool, has stood the test of time, proves particularly effective in stabilizing reintegration and is becoming a very useful framework for many other rehabilitation programs, within the State and throughout the nation.
On The Glidepath To Recovery
In his ministry, Father Young sought a way to describe the process he believes necessary for successful recovery. While watching a movie, "Midway," he became fascinated by the way a fighter pilot was guided to land on a carrier. Too often, those suffering from addictions, have problems that go beyond physical dependencies. They often don't have a jobs or shelter. Without those basic living needs, treatment often fails.
The pilot who lands his plane on an aircraft carrier follows a glide path, which includes critical direction from a support team. PYHIT, (the name of our parent organization), is that glide path for the addicted. It provides clients with comfortable housing, a place they can take pride in. Training them with valuable job skills and finding them a job as part and parcel of the program. Joined seamlessly together, they offer addicted men and women a fighting chance to become healthy, employed, tax-paying citizens with careers, families, friendships, and futures.
Through the Office of Alcoholism Substance Abuse certified programs, clients have the opportunity to recover. PYHIT takes everyone except sexual offenders and people considered violent, such as arsonists. There is too much at stake to risk hurting the many who need help.
A PBS documentary called, "Glidepath To Recovery", a Family Theater Productions presentation, has been aired nationally to 30 million viewers. This story paints the stark reality of millions of addicts and alcoholics who courageously are regaining their lives. The video about the work of Father Young is used for training and encouragement throughout the nation even today.
Touching The Clients
In the 80 statewide locations where he has programs and businesses, Father Young is present to the client at every opportunity. The faces are mostly brown and black, men and women, many in their 30 and 40s, speaking in downstate accents, greeting Father with a common salutation, "Hey, father" "hey, Father"" "hey, father" as they greeted him with handshakes, high fives, bear hugs, slaps on the shoulder. People feel special in his company because they are special to him. Bishop Hubbard once remarked, "He has the ability to make people feel as very special, very affirmed, which gives them the confidence and self-esteem they lack." People search him out, to open doors, close a deal, lean on his strength, make things happen.
Forging Partnerships
No one person can change the system or erect meaningful and constructive programs alone. Father realized that from the beginning. Often he allied himself with others striving to effect changes or used his ingenuity to work out cooperative ways to install and maintain programs for people with addictions.
One of the more interesting arrangements involved the City of Albany Housing Authority. The housing authority had a building, with about 300 senior apartments, with a vacancy rate of 70 percent. Desperate for housing for his clients, Father convinced the Authority to rent 60 units to the clients who were recovered and working. In turn, his guys would police the premises and the neighborhoods, discourage locals who were involved in crime and drugs. They protected the seniors and they paid rent. The program has been so successful that it has been introduce in a number of locations of the state, including Syracuse.
PYHIT partners with NYSID, New York State Industries for the Disabled, through maintenance and janitorial contracts services that as of 2003 involves multiple locations, employing 23 of our clients on annual contracts. The quality of our services has been recognized by the VESID in its annual reviews.
PYHIT partners with community organizations to make sure that clients are referred for services best suited to their needs. He seeks out State and local government support and those sources have encouraged PYHIT through grants and appropriations over the years.
Father Peter Young has acted as a catalyst and an innovator in forging partnerships that will solve problems and help those in need.
Spirituality Embedded in PYHIT
Underlying all that PYHIT does, "We're talking spirituality." he says. "Spiritual development is encouraged, but never required." We are interdenominational and thereby, we don't come into conflict with governmental funding support. Because we don't turn away anyone who seeks our help, many of our clients come from many different religious backgrounds. If you speak to our "wounded healers," people who have recovered and now serve others lost in addictions, you will find prayerfulness, love of God and love of neighbor as essential elements of their motivations.
Successful recovery means reliance on yourself but also on others. That typically includes reliance on God, to help bear the weights and pressures in beating the addiction, to set one free for sobriety and then serenity.
Making The Beatitudes Work
When you listen to the people he has helped, you understand why the poor in heart rally in his name. For many, they find a reason to try or try again to make recovery, WIN, WIN. For many people, they find a reason to hope and trust in their fellow man and woman; for others they find their way back to God and are sustained; for others, they have that "another chance" to make good, become whole, earn their way, win self respect and attain the dignity that after all is God given.
Priesthood Is His Privilege
His priesthood is something he loves. As he celebrates his 45th. year since ordination, Father gives thanks for his two communities, his parish in Bolton Landing and the Mother Teresa Community located on Second Avenue in Albany. The Bolton Parish supports the other one which is located in the inner city. It is the people with whom he works that sustain him. He says emphatically, "It's a privilege to be a priest." On May 2, 2004, friends from inner cities communities honored him at a "Celebration of Gospel Praise," to celebrate the occasion with him.
Peter's Power, Push and Punch
It might seem trite to take one letter of the alphabet as the measure of a man and use just one letter to describe how and why a man doggedly walks through an abyss of headaches and heart aches, to fulfill one mission over 45 years. We dare to express that drive as we take the P, Peter's namesake and the P for his power, push and punch. Each of the following P words play their part in appreciating the motivations behind Peter's Punch: Priesthood, Purpose, Personality, Persistency, Passion, Pain, and Pursuit.
When coping with physical infirmities some years ago, Father responded to an inquiry "I stopped planning a long time ago. I realized God had a plan so I let him take over." Although he believes in divine providence, he is always planning his next steps. Most recently, the PYHIT Committee on Strategic Planning began its deliberations to crystallize the direction, the PYHIT organization's goals, its strengths and weaknesses and a course of action for the next five years or more.
The Real Father Young
How do you define this man? How do you describe how one person has accomplished so much without seeming to take a breadth in between hundreds of initiatives to help addicted people in general and thousands of individuals in particular? Father Young appears untiring. Even with a few hours night's sleep, he tackles the new day refreshed and invigorated. A booming laugh sounds his presence, ringing of the cell phone punctuates his presence, emails by the hundreds denote his activities and concerns. His life is constant motion, meetings, interviews, incoming traffic as people seek his personal attention,. They all combine to circumscribe a daily routine without breaks or rest. How does he do it? That question persists in the minds of observers and his staff?
Father Young is God loving, joyous in his priesthood, generously giving of himself, his energies, his talents and his time to others. There is no apparent return to him other than knowing that in giving, you are blessed as says the beatitude. His 45 years of ministry are years of service to God's people. He remembers names as if they are branded on each head of the person he meets. Whether he is conversing with a chief of operations, a legislator, a friend, a staff member, a client or the shabby homeless person on the street, he sees no distinction. For each is a "God's person" and deserves equal attention, respect and treatment.
He is a man, a priest and a visionary, who tries never to say NO to people in need and only reluctantly accepts a NO when he thinks there is a chance to obtain support from others to assist in the mission of "Creating Taxpayers." Persistency advances his crusade, a prayerful spirit guides his ways and kindness signals his cause. 45 years is but an interlude in a total commitment to serve others.
The beatitudes keep him company. They beam their blessings on him and his actions. Happy are those who are merciful to others. God will be merciful to them. God bless Father Peter Young.