Lifestyle

Fessenden House has a lifestyle which is completely all its own.  While we are not unique as individuals, the way we choose to live is.  

First, Fessenden House residents are free to come and go as they choose and to engage in activities in the community as they are so moved, so long as they abide by the house policies and maintain their responsibilities to the House.  After the initial period of ninety days, a regular Resident may obtain overnight passes, so long as they are approved by the House Manager.

Residents are a fifteen-minute walk from the new Yonkers Public Library, situated on the Hudson River, with spacious reading rooms and complete computer network access.  Additionally, in the same area and within walking distance is the YMCA with its swimming pool and gymnasium facilities for those who would like to become members.  The City Line Bus stops almost in front of Fessenden House, and it is a twenty-minute bus ride to connect to the number one subway line, making it a little over an hour from Fessenden House to Manhattan.

Fessenden House provides a degree of privacy which is not to be found in half way houses or rehabilitation facilities.  Each resident has a private bedroom to himself.  The House provides local phone service to all residents as well as access to a fully-equipped computer room.  Soon we will be offering Internet access and email services from the computer room as well.  Fessenden House provides all residents with free local telephone calling service as well as free transportation to and from medical, therapeutic and legal appointments as well as 12-Step meetings.  As an additional incentive to the development of a healthy lifestyle, Fessenden House offers a weight room for the use of residents who desire it.

Fessenden House is open to residents of all faiths and all races.  While no particular religious orientation is required, the development of personal spirituality is strongly encouraged.  We provide residents with transportation to the church of their choice as well as 12-Step group meetings.  

From a different perspective, life at Fessenden House is unique in that the staff is prepared to help the resident negotiate the intricate mazes that are the SSI and DSS systems.  Also provided is help in interfacing with the legal and health care systems.  We are located in an easy bus ride from St. Joseph's Hospital, St. John's Hospital, and Westchester Medical Center.  Since we are located about one half hour from New York City, we can easily interface with legal as well as medical systems in the five boroughs of New York.

Of major importance to the success of Fessenden House and its way of living is that our model is not the institutional model of the half way house, but rather that of a Religious Community.  While the residents are not required to engage in any of our corporate spiritual exercises, they are well aware that the staff gather several times each day in the chapel to chant the monastic office and to celebrate mass with the priests who come to serve this community.  The foundation of this house is spiritual, and all who come here know it.  While participation in religious discipline by residents is optional, the fact of the existence of that discipline is not.  Everything that we as a staff do begins and ends in the chapel.