Felipe Vargas

Felipe Vargas serves as the Director of Criminal Justice Programs for The Doe Fund. Since 2006, he has played an integral part in putting a stop to the revolving doors of homelessness, addiction, and incarceration. Incarcerated as a teenager, Mr. Vargas served 20 years in prison before he was released in his mid-30’s. Since then he has worked at a number of organizations,
including The Doe Fund, serving as counselor, educator, manager, and director for programs devoted to helping the formerly incarcerated and those with substance abuse problems achieve sobriety and independence.

For the past two decades, The Doe Fund has helped more than 3,800 individuals transition from paths of homelessness, addiction, and incarceration to ones of productivity and self-sufficiency. The award-winning program, Ready, Willing & Able (RWA) operates out of three facilities, located in Brooklyn and Manhattan, and at another site in Philadelphia. Each day, they provide over 700 individuals with transitional housing; paid work experience; computer education; occupational training; career development and placement; comprehensive support services; and life-long graduate support, and, in so doing, help graduates to obtain and retain full-time employment, housing, and sobriety. Given the ongoing crisis in criminal recidivism and the current economic downturn, this work is critical. With even fewer opportunities for work, formerly incarcerated individuals face formidable obstacles to becoming productive members of society. It is during these times that The Doe Fund and its employees, especially Mr. Vargas, hold fast to its mission of helping others help themselves.

Mr. Vargas is responsible for the RWA programs at two of the aforementioned facilities—
Gates Avenue and Philadelphia—and directs the criminal justice programming, helping
adapt the RWA program to meet the needs of formerly incarcerated individuals. Previously,
he worked for six years at PROMESA Inc., initially as a Substance Abuse Counselor for the
Drug-Free Outpatient Program and then as Program Manager and ultimately Program Director of two residential substance abuse treatment facilities for youth and adults. Given this experience, coupled with his time spent as HIV/AIDS Program Coordinator for the Exodus Transitional Community and as Education Supervisor for AIDS Counseling and Education in Woodbourne, NY, Mr. Vargas was more than qualified for his current position. He has also made higher education a part of his life’s work, acquiring two graduate degrees—one in Sociology from the State University of New York at New Paltz and the second in Urban Ministry from New York Theological Seminary—and gaining credentials as a chemical dependency professional.

Mr. Vargas is currently dedicated professionally and personally to Prisoner Re-Entry advocacy and service delivery. His work with the formerly incarcerated utilizes cognitive behavioral approaches in assisting individuals to change criminal thinking and behavior, which he firmly believes is learned and supported by a system of ideas, thoughts, values, and beliefs. His theory maintains that, in order to change this behavior, the old set of values and beliefs have to be replaced with new ones. Human beings, however, are not just passive objects that we manipulate into exchanging one idea for another, so in order for true lasting change to take place, clients must come to see that the new system of beliefs, those of a law-abiding individual, serve the person better than the old ones. This is accomplished in The Doe Fund’s Reentry Programs through the use of didactic classroom discussion, educational literature and videos, and psycho-educational groups.

Mr. Vargas, with his devotion to gaining a deeper understanding of criminal behavior and the system of beliefs that create and ameliorate it, plays an active and key part in The Doe Fund’s efforts to prepare formerly incarcerated individuals for reentry into society and the workforce.  Therefore, Felipe Vargas is being awarded with the Social Action Award.