Our History

Thanks to a funding grant from the Waterford, PA-based Vicary Foundation, Perseus House has been a place where youth in need of residential care have gone or been placed since 1971. Its origins were in a single, West 26th Street, family home (of Steve McDermott) taking in truant youth.

Perseus House, Inc. continued to enhance our programming and expand services with the leadership of Mark Amendola. Through his tenure from 1994-2020 Perseus House, Inc. became focused on providing evidence-based and best practices. Through these efforts, our success was realized with outcome data that significantly surpassed the national averages for similar programs and won several state awards.

That part of our services grew into today’s multi-facility court-ordered juvenile placement service with 82 beds housing boys and girls in the shelter prior to adjudication or in post-adjudication residential, intensive, or victim offender-specific treatment.