Three Franciscan Friars saw a problem and an opportunity.

This remarkable story starts in the mid-1970s, when New York State discharged thousands of patients from its psychiatric institutions, anticipating better care in communities instead of warehousing patients in institutions. However, there was no community to receive them. A few had families who took them in, but most ended up living on the streets. Those who could afford it found refuge in single room occupancy (SRO) hotels.

At the same time, Fr. John McVean, a priest at the Church of St. Francis of Assisi on 31st Street in Manhattan, brought his ministry for seniors to the Aberdeen Hotel, an old SRO hotel where some of the former patients lived. There he met a psychiatric social worker who suggested they combine their interest in care for the elderly and the mentally ill. The two of them, accompanied by a visiting nurse, invited the tenants to join them in the lobby for coffee, which resulted in providing residents with desperately needed services, including medical and psychiatric treatment. 

And the supportive housing movement was born.

In 1979, as the tenants began to form a community, the hotel owners announced they were selling the property to developers. Fr. McVean turned to Fr. John Felice, then pastor of the Church of St. Francis of Assisi, and they convinced their Order, Holy Name Province, that a project combining housing, medical care, and personal support could keep these vulnerable people from living on the streets. The Province provided the initial funds to open a refurbished 100-unit SRO hotel on East 24th street, which became St. Francis Residence I in 1980.

Meanwhile, Fr. Felice had joined the project full-time, lending his pastoral and administrative talents. Our third founder, Fr. Thomas Walters, also came on board with his counselling skills. The project proved so successful that it became a national model for the permanent supportive housing movement. Two years later, positive media coverage enabled the friars, through their newly organized non-profit organization – St. Francis Friends of the Poor – to acquire and renovate St. Francis Residence II on West 22nd Street. In 1987, the friars also established a smaller SRO hotel as St. Francis Residence III nearby on 8th Avenue between 17th and 18th Streets.