November 15, 2004

For Peter Powell, the Journey From Engineer to Priest Took a Leap of Faith

 — Alumnus Devotes His Life to Helping the Homeless

The Reverend Dr. Peter R. Powell (BSChE '70) works to improve the lives of the homeless. (Photo: Audrey Sparre)

For the Reverend Dr. Peter R. Powell (BSChE ’70) the journey from chemical engineering student to Episcopal priest required a leap of faith. He is president and CEO of the Interfaith Housing Association (IHA) in Westport, Connecticut — a career that allows him to combine his training as an engineer with his calling to serve others.

“During my years as an undergraduate in chemical engineering, my professors taught me to use a systematic approach to problem solving,” says Powell. “In engineering you need to be able to break problems into solvable pieces so that they don’t overwhelm you. The same is true for problems in the homeless community. The skills I learned as an engineering student have proved invaluable to me in my work with Interfaith Housing Association.”

Powell’s trek from the classrooms in Riddick Laboratories to a homeless shelter in Connecticut began while he was a student at NC State in the late 1960s. He explored the possibility of attending seminary during his junior year, but the seminary advisers told him to change his major to something in humanities. Powell balked at the idea.

“Once you’ve passed physical chemistry and are just one year from finishing a chemical engineering degree, you can’t justify giving up and moving down a totally different degree path,” says Powell.

He remained at NC State. After graduation Powell took a job with Procter & Gamble in a division that produces food products.

“After I worked for several years, I wondered again about the direction of my life,” says Powell. “I began to wonder if I was really being called to the ministry and decided to find out.”

With the question of a higher calling in mind, Powell left his job in 1973 to attend Virginia Theological Seminary, where he earned a master’s degree in divinity in 1976. He continued his exploration of Old Testament theology and earned a master’s degree in theology from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1979 and a doctor of ministry from the University of the South in 1997.

Powell appears on stage at a Westport fund-raiser to benefit the Interfaith Housing Association. (Photo: Gordon Joseloff/WestportNow.com)

Powell was serving as rector of a church in Weston, Connecticut, when he began to wonder, again, about the direction of his life and decided to work with the homeless. In 1988 he accepted the presidency of Interfaith Housing Association, thinking that he would give it six months and then move on. He never left.

When Powell joined the association, it was a fledgling organization with a total budget of $90,000 and a failing halfway house. He tackled those challenges using problem-solving skills learned in his engineering classes at NC State.

In the 16 years since Powell began working with the association, the budget has grown to $1.6 million, most of which is privately donated money. The association now employs 21 staff members and serves 30,000 meals per year. The shelter capacity has increased from the original 15-bed, overnight-only facility to include a 15-bed shelter for men, a 4-bed shelter for women, two halfway houses and a 3-house complex for mothers and children. Each emergency shelter operates continuously, making IHA one of the few Connecticut shelters to provide round-the-clock services to the homeless. Each of these facilities has been added under the leadership of Powell and represents a tremendous expansion of services for the Westport community. Fortunately the community accepts the work of IHA and is proud that Westport is one of only four affluent towns in the U.S. to have an emergency shelter program for the homeless.

The Interfaith Housing Association also sponsors programs that attack homelessness from a variety of angles: PRIDE, an intensive employment-readiness program designed to help people with barriers such as mental illness; Women’s Interfaith Network (WIN), a one-on-one mentoring program to help homeless and at-risk women build self reliance; and the Gillespie Work Force, a structured work force re-entry program for shelter clients.

One of the most exciting projects implemented during Powell’s tenure is Homes With Hope, a program that provides permanent housing for the formerly homeless who have a mental illness that prevents them from living independently.

Powell says that the current trend in government funding focuses on sheltering rather than offering permanent housing for the homeless, a practice with which Powell strongly disagrees.

“Long-term sheltering is destructive,” says Powell. “People do better when they are not placed with 15 strangers in a large room. It is a matter of dignity. We try to treat the homeless with the same dignity we would expect for ourselves.”

	Peter Powell lives in Westport, Connecticut, with his wife, Barbara, and their five children, all girls. Powell is always interested in learning about new topics and listens to taped lectures on varying subjects during his daily five-mile walk.

Powell believes that people who are subjected to long-term sheltering begin to lose their ability to think or act on their own. By giving them a permanent housing opportunity — a place to call their own — Powell says they are more likely to stay engaged in life and function better over time.

In addition to his program development responsibilities, Powell serves as the association’s lead fund-raiser, finding resources in the community to support the association’s efforts. The association avoided holding fund-raising events in the past, relying on support from individuals and community service clubs.

“People are often surprised to find that a community as affluent as Westport has a homeless problem,” says Powell. “Historically, people lived near other family members who could provide shelter during difficult times, but now most people move here from some other place. There is no close family to help. I see the shelter as an extended family for those who do not have one.”

The path to homelessness varies for each person, explains Powell. Common to most in Fairfield County or affluent towns like Westport is addiction or mental illness. Also, in the present volatile economy, those who are fragile in their employment may become homeless as a result of unexpected job loss.

“My interest in the issues of poverty has a theological basis,” says Powell. “I take my direction from Matthew 25. I believe the issues of poverty are an integral part of the New Testament teachings.”

In addition, Powell is convinced that the journey to recovery from addiction is a spiritual one. “It is a spiritual process that heals the addict,” he explains. “Not necessarily a Christian process, but it is spiritual. My experience tells me that addiction is an illness of the spirit.”

Powell’s life has been a faith journey that he hopes will lead him and his wife, Barbara, back to his father’s hometown of Pittsboro, North Carolina. He says the course of his life would surprise those who knew him in the 1960s and that the most valuable lesson he learned while at NC State came from the chemical engineering professors. “They taught us to be curious,” he says. “Curiosity is so important in life.”

— weston —

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