The outreach breadth and scope of St. Vincent de Paul of Baltimore can be mildly mystifying ? that is, until one learns about the life of the ordained human dynamo who inspired the 142-year-old Catholic relief organization.
Vincent de Paul, a 17th-century French priest, founded hospitals and seminaries, tutored the gentry to fund missions to the poor, ministered to galley convicts, and established orders of mendicant priests and nuns, all the while performing his priestly duties ? and after escaping pirate capture and confinement in Tunis.
“Essentially our services are to help people who are suffering from the effects of poverty to meet their basic human needs, and to achieve a better future for themselves and their families,” 18-year Executive Director John Schiavone said of the diversified, 150-employee, $10 million-a-year nonprofit.
Schiavone estimated Baltimore City?s chronic homeless population at 3,500.
The organization has 15 targeted programs ? recovery-based transitional and permanent housing; mobile and facility-based clothing and food distribution; emergency financial assistance, counseling and referral; adult literacy, training and job placement services; and domestic violence prevention and outreach to youth and Hispanics ? and a parish-based network of 50 volunteer groups assisting the needy in parish areas.
Of the organization?s shelter and housing programs ? the Sarah?s Hope shelter in Baltimore County; the Frederick Ozanam House in Fells Point; the Cottage Avenue Community in Park Heights; and dispersed permanent housing for the chronically homeless, called Home Connections ? the latter program is the newest and also the most innovative, Schiavone said.
Launched last August, the $500,000, 28-apartment Home Connections program departs from phased-recovery thinking in favor of abruptly breaking homelessness with decent and dependable permanent housing for clients.
“Theyjust about saved my life,” said Larry Sigman, a one-time resident of Frederick Ozanam, and now employed by Johns Hopkins Hospital. “When I went there I was homeless [for 12 years]. I was mentally messed up ? beat up from the floor up. They really helped me get my life back together.”
“The housing becomes part of the therapy,” Schiavone said. “So you work to get them into a stable housing situation, and then you work … to help them address the other challenges that they have. It works.”
More information
» St. Vincent de Paul of Baltimore
320 Cathedral St., Baltimore
410-547-5377
www.vincentbaltimore.org
