How Rockland Homes For Heroes Happened

Rockland County’s History of Long Term Congregate Homes for Special Populations Is Something To Be Proud Of

When my tour of Active Duty in the Marine Corps ended in 1960, I moved to Rockland County. By 1965, I was steeped in local government and charities, especially those providing long term congregate residential services to our orphans, our mentally ill and and our intellectually and developmentally disabled. I was stunned by what I learned about our County.

Let’s start with two of the largest long term congregate residences.

[Please note: This story is NOT about Nursing Homes, Senior Citizen Housing or Affordable Housing]

In 1911, our State built Letchworth Village in the towns of Haverstraw and Stony Point. At it’s peak, it was home to 5,500 intellectually/developmentally disabled children and adults.

In 1926, our State built what was named Rockland State Hospital, since renamed Rockland Psychiatric Center, in Orangetown. At its peak it was home to 9,500 mentally ill folks. In 1970 a separate Children’s Psychiatric Center was built on the same campus. [I was appointed to its first Board of Visitors.]

I now turn to the many orphanages that Rockland hosted over the years that are all gone. Some of them were St. Agnes in Sparkill, St. Dominic's in Blauvelt, St. Agatha's in Nanuet, St. Joseph's in Piermont, House of the Good Shepard in Haverstraw/Stony Point, Woody Crest-Happy Valley-Five Points in Pomona, and Lakeside and Edwin Gould in Ramapo. Many thousands of children were served since the 19th Century.

All were created for noble purposes and built to take advantage of the open spaces and fresh air in a County near NYC.

This all changed with the embracing in the 60’s of de-institutionalization, a movement away from large facilities to smaller more personal venues. It was a “Sea Change”.

In the decades that followed, what were initially called Group Homes, now called Community Residences, emerged in much smaller sizes to replace their predecessors.. They are largely created and operated with Government funding and Oversight by such fantastic Not-For-Profit charities such as ARC, Camp Venture, Crystal Run Village, Jawonio, New York Foundling, YAI & Yeder Chesed/Bikur Cholim for our intellectually/developmentally disabled and Loeb House, the Mental Health Association & the Rockland Hospital Guild [CLUE] for our mentally ill.

I was blessed to be able to join that movement and am still working on it. My latest endeavor, with much help, is trying to end veteran homelessness. Veterans have been overlooked. In 2003, Tom Zimmerman, the Executive Director of Loeb House, and I, created a “Residence for Adults”, named “Missing In Action [MIA]” for homeless veterans, which we abandoned in 2006 for a better model. We followed up by incorporating “Homes For Heroes” in 2009. Not a business, a not-for-profit charity, run by 8 volunteers, 6 of whom are veterans.

The new model exists as 8 one-bedroom Supported Apartments built in 2013 on the former Camp Shanks site in Orangetown This was a giant improvement inasmuch as every veteran has their own permanent home with all the privacy they need and want. It’s a smashing success in turning lives around. It is not a shelter or privately owned homes. It’s permanent affordable rent subsized Supportive Apartments on an historic military site.

We are now seeking Construction Grants from the State and Project Planning costs from the community to add 14 more units, some of which will be two-bedroom apartments for parents, individuals who need live-in Home Care Services.

It will be a Living Memorial to veterans who never came home. For more information visit www.rocklandhomesforheroes.org.