Found: Achievements at Rescue Mission

By Franklin Taylor

Despite the departure of longtime CEO Chasz Parker last year, the Rescue Mission Alliance – Syracuse’s largest homeless shelter – has barely missed a beat.

Parker’s replacement, former Chief Operating Officer Alan Thornton, 39, has maintained his predecessor’s ambitious plan to expand shelter capacity by 75 percent.

By year’s end, Thornton expects to raise nearly $17 million, more than double the budget a decade ago. For-profit ventures – which, according to Thornton, are expected to account for 60 percent of 2013’s annual budget – have driven the shelter’s rapid growth.

Beginning in fall 2012, the Rescue Mission partnered with students from SU’s Martin J. Whitman School of Management to create 3fifteen, a thrift shop that sells clothing, furniture and housewares. Located in Marshall Square Mall on University Avenue, it is the most recent addition to the organization’s chain of Thrifty Shopper outlets.

Thornton says the Rescue Mission has been praised for its emphasis on transitional living and recovery. In February, he was invited to speak before the Federal House Republican Anti-Poverty Study Committee, where he showcased the “Willing to Work” program, which assists homeless men searching for employment.

“We wanted to show that you can put homelessness behind you,” Thornton said.

One manifestation of the initiative is Thornton’s new enterprise, “Mission Returns,” a group of bottle redemption plants.

“It’s been a phenomenal workforce development program,” Thornton said. “We were able to employ 160 people at Mission Returns locations last year. The centers also help to raise revenue that will clothe and shelter people.”

Thornton notes that demand for Rescue Mission services continues to soar. Even during the summer months, many men sleep on cots and chairs in the shelter’s hallways.

“Almost every night in the shelter, we are overcapacity,” he said. “But we try not to turn anyone away.”

The energetic CEO believes the planned expansion will provide adequate space for the ever-growing number of homeless. Its first phase, which he hopes will break ground in 2014, would convert the Rescue Mission’s recreation center into living quarters.