In A Former Cloister,
Men Rebuild Their Lives
A Germantown program leads the way
to overcoming addictions and other demons.Philadelphia Inquirer Editorials and Comments
by
Kristin E. Holmes
Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer
November 6, 2005
The narrow rooms that 16 years ago housed the nuns of Immaculate Conception Church in Germantown now offer asylum to a community of men.
Life for them has not been a cloistered peace but a troubled existence fraught with drug addiction, imprisonment or homelessness. In the sparsely furnished rooms where the sisters once slept, they try to reclaim productive lives and conquer private demons.
The Ghebre Michael Inn is the current home of a one-year program designed to help rebuild men’s lives. Named for an Ethiopian Catholic martyr, the program houses 12 men and uses the same spirit of structure and discipline that the nuns once used on their students. There are rules, curfews, chores, and three chances before being expelled.
“We tell the men we’ll give them support and a safe place that respects them,” said Brother Peter Campbell, the program founder. “If they graduate successfully, they get the full credit, because it’s hard work. If for any reason they’re asked to leave, well, they have to take responsibility for that, too.”
Most of the residents come from drug-rehabilitation centers or halfway houses; they range in age from 20 to 50. Many are from the Whosoever Gospel Mission in Germantown.
The men must work or be actively looking for jobs. Each is assigned a chore such as cleaning the kitchen or the basement, and each must be in his room at 11 P.M., when the hallways and stairwell alarms are set.
The men must pay $90 a week, $30 of which goes toward program expenses. The remaining $60 is placed in a personal savings account that they can’t touch until they graduate, or leave. That money is intended to be used as a start-up fund to help the men live on their own once they graduate.
They must cook for themselves, attend several weekly counseling sessions, and pass room-neatness inspections.
“I’m comfortable with the rules,” said resident Michael Johnson, 49. “They remind me that there are checks and balances in any society. If you adhere to them, then you have one-half the struggle beat.”
Program officials claim a success rate (graduation, that is) eight percentage points higher than the 30% typical in rehabilitation programs. They credit that higher rate to the small number of residents and the personal attention they receive. When a man is asked to leave, it is typically because of a parole violation or a drug relapse, said Sister Patricia Bouza, head of the program.
Younger men fail to graduate more than their middle-aged counterparts, Bouza said. “They think they have plenty of time to get themselves together. There is more bravado. By the time the men are in their mid-40s, they’ve suffered too much and had enough,” she said.
That the inn houses only men puts the program at a disadvantage when seeking grants and donations to fund its annual $226,000 budget.
“They say, ‘Men? Unemployed? Homeless?’ ” said the Reverend Timothy V. Lyons, Pastor of Immaculate Conception Church. “People think that they should be able to fend for themselves.”
Johnson has been in the program since September. He has battled drug abuse for nearly 15 years and got clean in 2003. He came to the program from the Whosoever Gospel Mission and now works for a hardwood-floor company and is taking classes at the Community College of Philadelphia. He wants to follow in the footsteps of his mother and stepfather and become a teacher. For him, the Ghebre Michael Inn is a relief from the crowded existence in shelters.
“I’ve met any number of people who are happy to go from park bench to park bench. They aren’t all that geared toward the uplift,” Johnson said. “Here, it’s clean, quiet, not crowded, and there’s a support system, and I believe this setting will work.”
The program was founded in 1989 by Campbell, who is a member of the Congregation of the Mission religious community, also known as the Vincentians. Immaculate Conception’s parish school had merged with another in the neighborhood, and the nuns were leaving. Campbell did a local needs-assessment survey, polling area residents and community groups. Helping homeless, unemployed and underemployed men was the need cited most often. So he developed the Ghebre Michael Inn program, and it’s been anchored in the neighborhood ever since.
“Some people are not excited about having social service in the community, but these folks are going to be here and it’s better to have them reintegrated through an organized [program] rather than just dumped in the community, said the Reverend LeRoi Simmons, Executive Director of the Central Germantown Council, an economic-development group. “They are an asset.”
The only trouble at the inn involving police thus far occurred when a program employee was arrested for stealing and a resident was arrested because of a bench warrant, Bouza said.
There have been heartbreaking cases of men failing to graduate, including one who seemed so poised for success that he had been hired to work on the inn’s staff after graduation. He relapsed. There have also been successes: the dentist, the graduate student studying for his doctorate, the SEPTA mechanic.
Vincent Covell, 39, has been sober for seven months and a resident at the inn for two weeks. He has been an alcoholic since he was a shy college student who found that drinking supplied him with the social ease of a big man on campus.
“I’m alone a lot, and that’s when I go back [to drinking],” Covell said. “I’m working on changing that, and here people are around all the time.”
An aspiring writer, Covell works at a gourmet market and is hoping that one day he will be counted among the inn’s successes. For now, he’s holding onto the program and his Alcoholics Anonymous meetings as anchors to stay sober.
Contact staff writer Kristin E. Holmes at 215-854-2791 or kholmes@phillynews.com.
