Richard “Mike” Bell is St. Vincent de Paul’s Director of Shelter Services and is responsible for the Society’s Ozanam Manor transitional housing program for elderly and disabled homeless adults. He is a graduate of the University of Minnesota and has a M.A. in Psychology from Michigan State University. He has also studied environmental psychology and social work at Arizona State University. In 2005, Mike was awarded a Virginia G. Piper fellowship that included site visits to research best practices in services to homeless people. Mike spent three years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, teaching psychology at the National University in the Malay language. There, he met his future wife, Philomena, at a Hash House Harriers run. They spent their honeymoon climbing Mt. Kinabalu in Borneo in pouring rain, but saw a glorious sunrise at the summit above the clouds. Mike and Philomena’s daughter, Elaine, lives in Manhattan and is a chartering executive for a shipping company.
