The Bowery Residents' Committee, Inc. (BRC) is a voluntary, non-profit organization addressing the needs of persons with limited resources. Our clients are homeless, chemically dependent, psychiatrically disabled, aged, and persons with HIV/AIDS in metropolitan New York City. The agency provides a comprehensive array of services including housing, meals, detoxification, mental health and addiction services, health care, vocational rehabilitation, AIDS services, community education, and advocacy. By providing these services, BRC offers its clients the means to function successfully in society, and seeks to improve the quality of life in the community.

Description and/or History:
The hopeful ethos of self-help, personal responsibility, and direct services still guides us as we help more than 6,000 people each year - still on the Bowery, but also in all five boroughs. Though the Bowery has changed significantly, our clients come from all over the city and remain among the most needy in New York. Many are mentally ill and chemically addicted; more and more of them are HIV positive. We persuade them to come in off the streets, give them shelter and direct them to our rehab and job training programs. We help many obtain their own apartments and jobs. As we have from the beginning, we acknowledge individual strengths and needs as we try to foster individual responsibility.

BRC began on the Bowery in 1973 - when the Bowery was still synonymous with Skid Row and the people who lived there were called winos and bums. The agency evolved from the efforts of local lodging house residents to provide basic social services for themselves and other disenfranchised men who lived on the Bowery, in the "flops," and on the streets. Those early services included meals, alcoholism treatment, and rudimentary vocational training.

Contact person: Rick Akin, Director, Volunteer Services, (212) 803-5720, (email)

Address:

324 Lafayette Street, 8th Floor New York, NY 10012 (See a map)