Our Executive Director

Since 1970, Sister Pat has been a part of the Islip community, serving and advocating for the needs of the poor, first as an elementary school teacher then to the larger Bay Shore community while also creating the Hospitality Center at St. Patrick’s parish.

The parish had become a ‘home’ for people recently mainstreamed back into communities from state psychiatric hospitals.  The mainstreaming movement was a good idea in theory; however, communities were not ready, and there were not sufficient services to transition people from their known environments within the hospital to the ‘outside’ world. In 1985, the Town intended to close a building that was home to over 100 persons formerly in the State Psychiatric Hospitals. S. Pat, along with community volunteers quickly learned the details of advocacy and negotiating the governmental quagmire.

S. Pat and S. Kathy Nolan began working together with this group of concerned citizens in an effort to prevent residents of the Baybright Hotel from losing their home. Out of this effort, Mercy Haven was born.

Over the past 38 years, Mercy Haven has grown from those humble beginnings in Bay Shore to an agency that provides housing and critical support services to more than 350 people, including 67 children, throughout Long Island.  After initially operating 3 community residences for those living with mental illness, Sister Pat led the agency to expand its housing to include a NY state licensed Adult Home and scatter-site apartments and homes for limited income, homeless families, veterans, disabled individuals and the elderly.  The agency currently operates 65 sites, which contain 119 housing units for 339 adults and children in-crisis.

Mercy Haven’s philosophy is that each of us deserves to be in safe and supportive communities.  Our friends, the poor and persons living with mental health issues, deserve an outspoken advocate willing to aid them in destigmatizing poverty and mental illness.