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JERSEY CITY, N.J. – In 2004, with his wife by his side, Jim McGreevey announced at the New Jersey statehouse, "My truth is that I am a gay American."
Facing allegations that he gave his male lover a lucrative state job, America's first openly gay governor ended his political career and abandoned his dreams of one day running for president. But he said that moment of coming out, a moment that catapulted him to national notoriety, was profoundly peaceful.
"It was just the most serene, wonderful feeling because, for the first time in my life, this is who I am," he remembered. “It was as true and as honest and the most authentic place as I’ve ever been in my life.”
Ten years later, the state's former top official, with degrees from Columbia, Georgetown, Harvard and the London School of Economics, spends much of his time in the working-class neighborhood of Jersey City where he grew up, and in a local jail, helping ex-offenders transition from prison to the world outside.
Following his resignation, McGreevey went through a very messy and public divorce, complete with dueling memoirs. Some in the gay community shunned him, accusing him of using his sexuality to distract from his alleged corruption.
"Only in New Jersey could people say that was used to cover political scandal," said McGreevey. "The scandal was I was being sued by this person I ought not to have had a relationship with, particularly considering the fact that I was a married man and this person had been on the government payroll, and I should not have hired him. In my mind, that's enough of a mess."
In its wake, McGreevey began a spiritual quest that led him to seminary school in the Episcopal Church. That's where he discovered his new calling.
“ [I was] shoulder-to-shoulder every morning, every lunch and a lot of dinners with people who had spent 15 years, 18 years at Sing Sing [Correctional Facility],” McGreevey said. “I’m like, these guys want the same thing that I want: He wants to work, he wants to live in a safe community, he wants to do better for his children. And so that really was transformative for me.”
Today, McGreevey runs Martin’s Place, a federal- and state-funded organization helping ex-offenders in Jersey City adjust to life outside prison. The organization says it has a 23 percent recidivism rate, far below the national average of 67 percent.
"I've always been for the outsider, for the underdog," McGreevey said. "I think maybe it's because I was gay."
Jim McGreevey
former New Jersey governor
A few blocks from where McGreevey was born and raised, we visit transitional housing that Martin's Place set up for 20 women. After welcoming the residents with hugs, he introduces us to Cassie, an ex-offender who he has mentored and represented in court.
"Cassie's a classic case," he said. "She would have been in prison, spending time in prison and instead she came here, went to cosmetology school, has a job, is on time and I'm so proud of her."
"Blame me!" McGreevey yells as Cassie races out the door to get to her job on time.
McGreevey was in his element, joking with the residents, who clearly admired him. It was obvious why he'd wanted to take us here, although he struggled to find the words. He finally settled on, "This is life."
McGreevey is particularly moved by the number of people behind bars who are addicts – more than 65 percent, according to a 2010 report from The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. And he's taken his fight into the prison system, acting as a counselor and lay minister to drug addicts serving time.
"He feels our pain and we can identify with some things because he's got demons too," said Taisha Wright, one of the inmates of Hudson County Correctional Facility. "They may not be the same demons, but we've got demons."
"Amen," said McGreevey.
In his mission to help prisoners, McGreevey has found an unlikely ally in the man who holds his former job, Gov. Chris Christie. The liberal Democrat and leading Republican have joined forces on the issue of drug treatment.
“Chris always says that we have nothing in common except the one issue and I'll take that,” McGreevey said. “On the importance of treatment and the importance of changing the bias toward incarceration toward diversion, on that one issue, Chris has spoken very courageously.”
It's an issue that's become increasingly bipartisan, in part because of the wild high expense of incarceration.
"Fifteen years [in prison]? That's half a million dollars," said McGreevey. "That's half a million dollars that's not spent on pre-kindergarten education. That's half a million dollars for one human being…. Half a million dollars and there's a two-thirds likelihood they'll be back in."
Martin’s Place is a small program. Only 350 people have come through its doors. But its model about to grow. On Jan. 13, Christie announced plans to expand this kind of program to five other cities in New Jersey.
It's a political achievement for McGreevey, but politics don't appeal anymore.
"There's not a lot of people running to do prison re-entry," he said. "So yeah, there's 'Jim McGreevey the comeback story!' That's not what God wants me to do in my life. What he wants me to do in my life is be right here in Jersey City on MLK [Drive] working with people. That's what I need to do."
But while McGreevey took himself out of politics, he couldn't take the politics out of him. Walking through his old neighborhood, McGreevey can barely stroll down the block without residents coming over to him and shaking his hand.
"You're still my governor," one man told him. "You're all right with me."
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