Fortune Academy
In April of 2002, after six years of strategic planning and development, we opened the doors to the Fortune Academy, a residential housing facility located in West Harlem. Nicknamed “The Castle” for its Gothic architecture and prominent site along the riverfront, the Academy provides 62 beds in single and shared occupancy units for homeless former prisoners. Twenty-one of the beds are earmarked for emergency housing and the remaining 41 represent longer-term, “phased permanent,” housing, where residents stay up to a year or longer, depending on their individual needs. The Academy also boasts an industrial kitchen that provides residents with daily nutritious meals, a computer lab, a laundry room and a community space where residents can rest, relax and interact with each other in a drug-free environment.
Like Fortune itself, the Academy is unique in that it provides a broad array of services under one roof, with staff members on hand 24 hours a day to help residents address the multiple problems that confront them. In addition, every resident is required to participate in productive activities at our downtown offices – such as education, career development and counseling – to assist them in their successful transition back to the community
Since 2002, the Academy has provided housing for over 500 homeless former prisoners. The program model has received significant national recognition, including the following accolades:
- Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award by the NY Landmarks Conservancy for the preservation of the building now known as the Fortune Academy.
- The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Re-Entry Initiative of the U.S. Department of Justice have both profiled the Fortune Academy as a model program.
- The Urban Institute featured the Fortune Academy as a national model re-entry program.
- AIDS Housing of Washington cited the Fortune Academy in their report, “From Locked Up to Locked Out: Creating and Implementing Post-Release Housing for Ex-Prisoners.”
- New York University’s Stern School of Business recently used the Fortune Academy as a case study on developing low-income housing in New York City.
For information about replicating the Fortune Academy program model, please visit our Toolkit.
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To be considered for entry into the Academy, clients must be homeless and have been released from prison or jail within the last year. For more information about the program, or to refer a potential resident, please contact Patricia Haversham-Brown, Senior Director of Residential Services, at or 212-690-6202.
