Categories: New York City, Press, Member News
03.14.2014
New pieces published in Wall Street Journal, Irish Central
Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, two stories were published this week on Sister Tesa Fitzgerald, the celebrated Irish American and executive director of a Queens-based supportive housing provider.
The pieces, which ran in the Wall Street Journal and Irish Central, highlight the recent opening of Hour Apartment House II, a supportive housing residence that opened late last year. The residence offers housing and services to formerly incarcerated women and their children.
The Wall Street Journal piece highlights the warm, inviting atmosphere created by Hour Children, the nonprofit that developed the residence. “I never thought I would live somewhere so beautiful,” says one of the tenants. “When you out there on the street, you don't think someone like Sister Tesa could love a total stranger. I'm glad she loves me,” says another. It’s a moving account of how supportive housing can transform the lives of some of New York’s most underserved individuals and families (please note that this article may be behind a pay wall).
The Irish Central article offers a historical overview of Hour Children, which began as an effort in the 1980s to find homes for the children of incarcerated mothers. Sister Tesa herself was a foster mother to eight children. By 1996, Sister Tesa and three other nuns formed Hour Children as a nonprofit to offer services to both mothers and their children. The organization now operates three supportive and two transitional housing residences.
To learn more about one particular Hour Children tenant, see this profile of Johanna Flores, one of the Network’s 2013 Tenants of the Year.
Long a friend of the Network, Sister Tesa has devoted her life to this work. For her dedication, she was profiled as part of CNN’s Heroes series in 2012. We congratulate her on this new press and urge you to read these new accounts of her work at Hour Children!
Photo credit: Allison Pasek/Wall Street Journal