Father Peter Young

Category: Heroes
Published: February 2008

Peter Young Housing Industries & Treatment (PYHIT) is an alcohol and drug rehabilitation program for incarcerated individuals. Father Young has selflessly dedicated his life to this work.

His method for rehabilitation relies on three main elements: housing, appropriate treatment, and job training and placement. His methods are used in countless prisons, and he has facilities throughout New York State.

Success Magazine: What does success mean to you?
Father Young: Seeing people become taxpayers. I try to help people earn a paycheck, and the respect that goes along with that. Seeing people succeed. When I see a person in need, I try to find a way to respond to that need.

SM: We write about people who have overcome obstacles to become successful. You have done just that. How did you come up with the concept of providing individuals with housing, treatment and a job?
FY: I was fortunate, because working in the south end, I had many people coming in and asking for things they desperately needed. I listened to their needs, and I tried to meet those needs. After 18 years of working on Green Street at St. Johns, I transitioned into a different opportunity. I tried to run a trucking company. I trained people to become drivers, with a class 1 license. I bought tractor trailers and I put them on the road as training vehicles, not as commercial vehicles. The people I might have been competing with were not too happy and I kept getting sugar in my gas tanks. I wound up with a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of debt. I went to the Bishop and I told him of my debts, and of my need to work them off. He decided to make me a chaplain in the prison system. There I saw the opportunity to start a program to prepare people for their release, and their opportunity to become an employable taxpayer.

SM: What made you leave Mt. McGregor Correctional Facility and then start your housing and treatment program?
FY: While running, operating and founding these alcohol and drug programs, I heard many excuses. I knew I had to take away the excuses. I had to find ways to get people employed. I met with the Department of Education and the Department of Labor, to try and find where the jobs would be in the year 2000. It seemed that they would be in healthcare, and in the culinary and hospitality industries. I tried to mold my program accordingly. Since people with a felony would not be accepted into any kind of healthcare facility, I focused on hospitality, hotels, and the culinary experience. I put together an agreement with the State Union, that they would guarantee a job after I held an individual in an internship position for 6 months. I had to find a place to have these internships, so we developed restaurants, hotels and convenience stores; food service outlets where I could train people and give them a job, to prepare them for success in the private sector.

SM: When you say develop hotels, restaurants and delis, you actually had to buy and refurbish them. How did you begin to develop this aspect?
FY: Yes, we bought them, refurbished them, and made them a commercial operation. I first needed to figure out who had a genuine desire to do something with their life. The next step was to get them into a place that would be supervised, and for that I needed to have housing. I had to develop a housing network. Were housing 3,000 people a night right now, so we have large housing facilities all over the state, from Buffalo to Brooklyn. We try to never charge more than 30% of their income- that is for food, room, and board. We want them to build a little pot of money, so they will gravitate out of the program making more room for new people coming in. And of course I have to have the treatment. I have to make sure they stay in their treatment program. The final thing is the job placement. There are three essential elements to the prison rehabilitation program. I look at it like a three legged stool. Prisoners need to stabilize with those three components. I call it HIT: housing, industry and treatment.

SM: What is the success rate of people coming out of your program?
FY: A study was done by the NY State Graduate School of Criminal Justice a number of years ago. They took the roster of those that went through the entire program, and the total number of individuals re-incarcerated over ten years was 8%. This means that 92% succeeded. Those that have not gone through the program are running a rate of about 75% re-incarceration.

SM: That is an outstanding statistic. The program obviously works.
FY: You need to have all of the things in place to make it work. Take away any one of them and we lose 20%. Without any of the three legs in place, the percentages would quickly drop.

SM: You personally have invested a lot of your time, labor and effort to this cause. How do you achieve a sense of balance in your life?
FY: Well I have always been a volunteer. I have to admit that it has been a rough road trying to keep the economics alive. About 400 people every week wonder if I am going to meet their payroll. I hope it will be there. I pray to God every day that it does come in. Right now the program is so big that I have to worry about the payroll, about lawsuits difficulties that face any entrepreneur. I have to worry about the 97 locations that I have around the state; where they are, what they are doing, and how they are succeeding, or falling flat on their face. I then must make strategic moves that will hopefully make it a better program, and allow us to help more people. For that I need properties, licenses, and a dedicated staff. Pulling it together from an administrative standpoint is basically where I am right now. I dont get the chance to be with the clients as much as I would like.

SM: You have been doing this for many years. You also have a church that you work with in Bolton Landing?
FY: That ministry has been a foundation for me. I find in the parishioners, a family. They have reached out to me, often even inviting me to their homes for dinner. It has been a very supportive arrangement. Now I have a location in the south end of Albany, and I am working on evangelisation. Sunday at 4:00 I have services, where there are no collections and a free meal. When I wanted to become a priest, I had the intention of serving.

That is what Ive always believed in. I try to help people to become a little more of what God intended them to be.

SM: At some point you are going to have to take a step back. Do you have a succession plan within your organization?
FY: We have strong leaders that have been with me for over 25 years. I am not inventing anything here, they are inventing. I am trying to raise the money to keep them on the payroll and to keep them moving in the right direction. I supervise all of them, but they are dedicated and committed. What we are doing will definitely have a solid foundation. You are not the first one to ask that. At 78, everyone is beginning to wonder how long I can continue to do this. As long as I am able, I will be here. I dont know how long I have to make it all happen. Right now I am working to keep it all together, by raising money and depending on the strong administrative staff that I have.

SM: Not everyone is familiar with what you do. Not everyone believes in what you do. How can entrepreneurs and other business owners help to support your program?
FY: In the late 50s I started the crusade to decriminalize. I tried to find out how I could make that happen. On Green Street, I would run into people who I really admired, and yet they were consistently being brought in for drug problems and other difficulties. When they werent using, I found these individuals to be completely trustworthy. I lived in a house with 24 of them. I got to know them as a community and as a family. In doing that, I found a different approach. I needed to make a systemic change. These people needed a better opportunity. I heard what they said, and I took it to the legislature. I have been working with the legislature for 48 years as an advocate, and always as a volunteer. I have written many of the laws that we have now on addiction. It began with the support, agreement and cooperation of Governor Rockefeller. He was the first major believer in my idea of decriminalization. He empowered me to make changes. I have always been up there on the hill, because if you are going to make a change you need to be where the power is.

SM: You have 97 buildings. If you had to put a number value to your properties, what would it be?
FY: I havent sat down and tried to do that, but our operational budget is over 20 million a year. As far as real estate goes, we have 6 corporations, each with a different purpose in working toward the mission of the organization. They are all run by very competent people who I keep in touch with each day by e-mail. When they want to make a move, I have to meet with our executive team to discuss whether or not we can afford to do it.

SM: You certainly have the entrepreneurial spirit. You had the vision. You created this from nothing, and it is has worked. How can other entrepreneurs or individuals help you in your efforts?
FY: I have learned that the only way to sell this program to people is with economics. I am dealing with individuals who are not liked. They are criminals. They have an addiction or another problem and therefore people arent going to be immediately sympathetic to their needs. I know that the only thing I have in my favor is to show the economic side of it. I saw in the paper yesterday, that Rikers Island costs 135 dollars a day. You add that up over 365 days and it is approximately 50,000 dollars a year per person, to keep them in jail. Our cost is about 7,000 dollars per year per person. The taxpayer is a winner if they are allowing our programs to expand. The savings are significant.

SM: What does the future entail? Where do you see the program heading?
FY: I look for the citizens of the state to begin to understand that the economy can be improved by allowing programs such as ours, with the idea of rehabilitating people. I think that is the key; to try and destigmatize the negativity, and to assist people in their mission of recovery. From our point of view, my role is to take away the excuses.

SM: You have faith in God that people will be healed, but you cant heal them. How do you deal with the disappointment?
FY: I keep opening their doors. They may fail initially, but we go back and try again until we get it right. The opportunity is still there. We make them do what is needed, to improve upon their statistic of success. We have an awful lot of what we call program butterflies. They go in and out of our programs. But every time they do it, I make it a little more difficult. They have to show their sincerity. We test their dedication to be sure they are serious about changing. Otherwise we are wasting our resources.

SM: What advice would you give to people who are just starting out in business?
FY: Have a focus. Be focused on what you want to accomplish. Mine was getting people into a better kind of life. That is where I started from, and I maintain that focus. I look at the problems that people have and I try to figure out a way to get them into one of our programs. I try to lead them to water... but I cant make them drink. I show them the door, but it is their choice whether or not they walk through it.

SM: If you had to describe yourself in one word, what would it be?
FY: Persistence. That is the only thing I think Ive got. I sort of wear people down. I have maintained my focus to try and develop a program that can help people. I know my chances. I know what I am limited to. I am not a brilliant guy, but I am a persistent guy.