Father Peter Young, nonprofit founder
Father Peter Young, an iconic Capital Region priest who transformed individual lives and public attitudes toward substance abuse, died early Wednesday at age 90 at Albany Medical Center Hospital after a long battle with multiple myeloma.
Young was best known as the founder of four nonprofit organizations in the Capital Region and New York City that grew to operate from 117 sites stretching from Buffalo to Brooklyn. The organizations, under the Peter Young Housing, Industry and Treatment umbrella, provide shelter, job training, employment and substance-abuse counseling to several thousand clients, including homeless people and the formerly incarcerated.
Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger of the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese said Young “changed and saved many lives through his work with those who struggle with addiction, and that is a legacy that will not be forgotten.”
In October, the Times Union profiled Young ’s life and his battle with cancer.
An Albany native, Young was a gifted baseball player who recalled being the one
Father Young saved more lives than any person, any of us could possibly know. He was a true missionary. He would go into communities, whether it was the Capital Region or downstate in New York ... that other services — including the government — have long since given up on, and he would set up shelters and services. ... He had vision like that, and he was courageous in his conviction that his role was to serve people.” Former Congressman John Sweeney
white player to take the field in Negro League games thanks to the patronage of manager Art Mitchell, who discovered Young at a sports camp he ran. But Young chose to study business on a Siena College football scholarship. (Young maintained his bond with the college and received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree from Siena in 2006.)
While serving in the Navy in 1953, Young ’s path changed. When a group of drunken shipmates tried to rape a woman in an alley during shore leave in the Caribbean, Young interceded and got a beating. Later, his captain asked about his pummeled face. A long conversation ensued about alcoholism. The captain, struck by Young ’s insights, urged him to become a priest.
“I felt called,” Young told the Times Union. “The civil rights movement had started. I was young, wanted to change the world.”
The priest, who worked with former Albany Roman Catholic Diocese Bishop Howard Hubbard in the 1960s at the former St. John’s Church in Albany’s South End, laid the groundwork for drug rehabilitation and alternativesto-incarceration programs that served as a template for many community service organizations — including those Young would go on to establish.
The priest was especially proud of his efforts in the 1970s to decriminalize alcoholism at a time when many people who suffered from drug and other substance abuse problems would be thrown in jails and fail to receive any treatment.
Kevin A. Luibrand, an attorney and Young ’s cousin — Luibrand’s grandmother and Young ’s mother were sisters — said the priest rubbed elbows with former Gov. Nelson Rockefeller and used to bring alcoholics to hospitals, usually St. Peter’s, and fabricate conditions so that he could get them admitted — a tactic to deny them access to alcohol.
“It used to be if you were drunk, you were brought to jail,” Luibrand said. “The turning point for him was a woman who died in police custody: She was intoxicated; instead of bringing her to the hospital they were taking her to jail, and by the time she got to (the) police station, she was dead of alcohol poisoning.”
Young fought for alcoholism to be viewed as a disease and not a crime, and his efforts led to the state retooling its criminal statutes in the 1970s.
“It was decriminalized, and that opened the door to detoxification centers,” said Luibrand, who helped Young establish his organizations when he was in Albany Law School and later became president of the priest’s boards of directors, a position he has held since 1982. “That was the turning point that created the entire industry that exists now ... the turning point of how people view drug addiction and alcohol addiction.”
Luibrand recalled the priest had great relationships with both Rockefeller and former state Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno, who got behind most of the bills and funding that Young needed to run his programs.
Many people viewed Young as a “liberal priest,” a moniker that Luibrand said Young scoffed at.
“He would tell me, ‘People think I’m a liberal — I’m not a liberal.’”
Indeed, Young avoided casting himself as a dogooder. His aid came with obligations: The priest was more likely to drive someone in recovery to a job interview than simply give them a free meal.
“What he would always do was try to show them, through a program or guidance, how to turn their life around,” Luibrand said. “He would help fund them in whatever program they needed, but ... he really wanted people to take control of their lives. And he was giving them the tools and the opportunity to do that.”
Young was renowned in political circles for his ability to garner grants and support from state lawmakers in Albany and knew well how to navigate the halls of the Capitol and gain access to lawmakers. Even as his mobility diminished, he was a regular fixture at the state Capitol and was frequently called on to open legislative sessions with a prayer.
There was turbulence within Young ’s organization beginning in 2012, when an internal review uncovered financial improprieties that were reported to the state. That led to a subsequent investigation of Young ’s Altamont Program and eventual charges being filed against a few people engaged in criminal activity. It took several years for the nonprofit organization to emerge with reshaped leadership; its access to grant programs was reinstated after a years-long legal battle between the organization and the state Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services.
Former Congressman John Sweeney on Wednesday said that “at one of the lowest points in my life, this guy swooped in and picked me up.”
Sweeney, who lost his congressional seat in 2006 to now-u.s. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, had been engulfed by alcoholism. Rock bottom arrived when he spent 16 days in jail for a DWI arrest.
Sweeney connected with Young through his probation officer; he took his last drink more than 11 years ago. The priest hired the attorney and former congressman as a staff member on his programs, which at one point were serving 3,500 people across the state.
“Father Young saved more lives than any person, any of us could possibly know. He was a true missionary,” Sweeney said. “He would go into communities, whether it was the Capital Region or downstate in New York ... that other services — including the government — have long since given up on, and he would set up shelters and services. ... He had vision like that, and he was courageous in his conviction that his role was to serve people.”
Sweeney recalled accompanying Young during a meeting in New York City when the priest was seeking to buy inner-city properties “that nobody else would really have much of an interest in.”
“It’s a sad day, but I reflect on who I was lucky enough that God put in my path to know,” Sweeney said. “He was just a truly incredible man.”