SHELTER SEEKS MONEY FOR TREATMENT FACILITY

CAMDEN - Framed by a dilapidated rowhouse, Chris Anderson stands in
the growing darkness and talks about the most profound four days of
his life: his half-week of homelessness.

Anderson, who grew up in Salem County, had a family, a good job, and
an $1,100 paycheck every week. After a house fire and his son's
death, however, everything slipped away. He lived in motels for a few
months, then found himself on the streets of North Camden, his
savings depleted.

Anderson ended up at My Brother's Keeper, a homeless shelter whose
message and staff have helped him so completely, he said, that he now
lives in a house a few blocks away, has steady work, and donates his
time helping to fix up the program's two buildings.

"This place really helps you out," Anderson said last week, motioning
to the porch of the dwelling that serves as a shelter. "They helped
with my housing and with my medication."

The Rev. Miguel Torres started the program in 1988 as a Christian
drug- and alcohol-rehabilitation center to heal people physically,
spiritually and psychologically; it now occupies two State Street
houses and also serves as a winter shelter.

Funded solely by donations and grants, My Brother's Keeper may soon
expand the rehab and shelter programs, and a $3 million housing and
treatment facility is being planned.

Although the agency recently received a federal grant worth more than
$275,000, groundbreaking won't happen until an additional $75,000 is
raised, said Oscar Hernandez, Mr. Torres' administrative assistant.

"We're putting out a plea to let people know we need financial
support to get this off the ground," Hernandez said. "We really want
to do this in six months."

Sketches for the building, which would stand on the York Street plot
that My Brother's Keeper occupied when it opened but abandoned after
a 1998 fire, are tacked up everywhere in the two rowhouses. Along
with signs showing how much more money is needed, the drawings remind
the 14 residential and 40 or so nightly clients of the fresh start
the program's administrators hope to give them.

"We will get funding," Mr. Torres said, with one hand on the rusted,
red-painted bar of a bunk bed. "We're here by faith, and we'll grow
by faith."

For Hernandez - who said that last year he was living in a wheelchair
in a city park, going through 12 bags of heroin a day, and
contemplating suicide - the fact that he works at all is a minor
miracle. The fact that he works for a growing organization that helps
people, he said, is a major one.

"We come in all broken up, we learn that we have a value, and we go
on, and that's a big thing when you're a junkie, when you have
nothing," said Hernandez, who smiles beatifically when talking about
his redemption. "When you get past that to help run a corporation
that's about to expand, that's a big thing."

Cheered by President Bush's announcement of more federal dollars for
faith-based organizations, the staff members of My Brother's Keeper
remain optimistic that their goals are within reach.