Organization Details:

HAI inspires healing, growth, and learning through engagement in the arts for the culturally underserved.

Description and/or History:
HAI provides cultural services to consumers with a broad range of needs. There are four departments in HAI designed to meet these needs. They are called Cultural Events Program, In-Facility Program, Prevention and Education Program, and Arts Workshop Program.

The Cultural Events Program (CEP)purchases bulk tickets for theater and sporting events in order to make available steeply reduced group tickets to the entire community. CEP also operates three buses that are designed to accommodate mostly wheelchairs and stretchers, in order to transport folks with physical disabilities and the frail elderly to events. In addition, CEP secures prime seating at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park events for HAI's physically disabled and frail elderly constituencies. Lastly, CEP's program, called Describe, is a translation service available to blind theater patrons. Volunteers narrate what is happening on the stage to patrons through headphones.

The In-Facility Program had its beginning sending performing artists into mental hospitals, and it now serves consumers in schools, day programs, group homes, assisted living homes, prisons, and hospitals. In-Facility also oversees the Prevention Education Program, which sends teaching artists into medical facilities, prisons, and schools to conduct HIV/AIDS prevention workshops, youth leadership programs, peer education programs, and service learning programs, using drama and photography as tools for engagement, learning, well-being, and recovery.

The Arts Workshop Program sends visual and performing artists into schools, group homes, day programs, assisted living facilities, and hospitals to conduct hands-on workshops. One of the jewels of this program is the HAI Gallery, which exhibits the work of its "outsider" artists--artists who have mental illnesses and visit the HAI Saturday Studio to draw and paint each week as part of their therapeutic process. The space and supplies are provided by HAI.


At its founding, HAI's primary beneficiaries were people in NYS mental hospitals (as they were then called), hence the original name, Hospital Audiences Inc. As the organization rapidly grew, it responded to the needs of ever more diverse audiences: substance abuse programs, correctional facilities, people in nursing homes, people with disabilities, and people in homeless shelters. Children in schools have also participated in HAI programming for the past three decades.

Contact people:

Tina Suszynski, Assistant, (212) 575-7675, (email) Hillary Charap, Marketing Director, (212) 575-7676, (email) Michael Spencer, Executive Director, (212) 575-7676

Address:

548 Broadway, Floor 3 New York, NY 10012 (See a map)

Directions:

We are located next to the Uniqlo retail store, between Prince and Spring. The closest trains are the N/R at Prince, the 6 at Spring, and the BDFV at Broadway-Lafayette. The Q train at Canal(Broadway stairwell) also gets one relatively close to the office (this involves a 10-minute walk to the office from the station).   Nearest Metro/Subway Stop: N/R, 6, BDFV,   Walk distance (in minutes): 1-5 minutes   Nearest Bus Stop: 1, 6, 2 minutes minute walk