'Mission' Accomplished

By Andrea Appleton
POSTED NOV.1, 2006

Wearing caps, gowns and shy grins, a tiny procession of graduates filed into the fluorescent-lit chapel of the New York City Rescue Mission, at 90 Lafayette St., last month. A chorus belted out lively hymns as the audience of well-wishers snapped photos and rose from their hard, plastic seats to cheer the men on. The unpretentious level of pomp fit the circumstance.

The four graduates who lined up in front of the mission’s chapel on Oct. 18 were not there to make speeches about a vague, brighter future or just to be recognized for good grades and handed a diploma. They were celebrating recovery: from drug addiction or homelessness or a criminal past. And all had emerged from their darkest days. The graduates had just completed the mission’s Residential Recovery Program, a rigorous program similar to Alcoholics Anonymous, though with a stronger emphasis on religion. Only about one in 10 who sign up get this far.

“To experience hardship is not the end of the line,” executive director James VarnHagen said from the podium, “but could be the beginning of something wonderful.”

The Mission, founded in 1872, hosts about 80 homeless men a night. About 25 beds are reserved for Recovery Program participants, who usually stay a year, helping to cook, clean and run the shelter, as well as take classes there (from literacy to computer to substance abuse courses). Their freedom to come and go is tightly restricted. Near the end of their residency, they must either find work or enroll in school.

When Anthony Quinones, 29, arrived at the mission last October, he had been a high-rolling drug dealer for more than 10 years. He owned three cars, and was at one time pulling in $1,000 a day. Then he began to recognize his destructive ways, and he feared a lifetime in prison. Quinones came to the mission for help, and got more than he bargained for.

“I started thinking, man, some of these people were probably my customers,” he said. “I probably messed up some of these people’s lives.”

Quinones, who has two felonies on his record and had little education, recently earned his GED and is attending college full-time while working part-time as a stock boy. He hopes to become a web designer.

Graduate Anthony Graham, 46, was a drug user on and off for years. After his wife died two years ago Graham got hooked on crack, and was left with no job, no apartment and no prospects. Graham recalls that one day he “was drifting by the mission” and came in for the night. He began the program the next day—and has been clean ever since. Graham works full-time as a meat-cutter, and plans to move to Florida to be near his mother, who he hasn’t seen in 17 years.

Joseph Veve, a life-long cocaine addict, was homeless last year before his dramatic transformation. Today he has a full-time job with benefits and is working towards becoming a substance abuse counselor. (To read his story, click here.)

Rafael Rivera’s story is less about addiction than chronic isolation. Rivera came to the mission after years of problems with public housing. His apartment in Queens regularly flooded and chunks of the ceiling periodically fell. Adult Protective Services, an agency that helps impaired adults, referred Rivera to the Mission.

His housing problems have not been entirely resolved, but Rivera says he no longer feels helpless.

“The world is not as bad as I thought it was, you know.”

The New York City Rescue Mission hosts its annual Great Thanksgiving Banquet on Nov. 20. Call 212-226-6214 to donate or to be a volunteer.