Author: Marc Parry

Source: Times Union

http://timesunion.com/ASPStories/Story.asp?StoryID=736309

Amin Abdullah spreads the inmates' letters over his mosque's green rug.

The authors are imprisoned in Clinton. Fishkill. Marcy. Abdullah reads aloud from one who writes of "a problem with addiction."

"I will be homeless once I am released," he says. "So I am begging and pleading for your help."

Help may be coming. A group of Muslims is trying to aid inmates like him with a new faith-based Islamic shelter and treatment program. They say the facility, called House of Forgiveness, would be the first of its kind in the region.

If the Albany project succeeds, it would plug a social service gap that local Islamic leaders have talked about filling for decades.