Organization for chasidic dropouts

Some of these ex-chassidim became so secular they started on shabbos- carrying in Boro Park!

JTA:

...Footsteps, a 2-year-old Manhattan-based nonprofit group that helps dropouts from the haredi world transition into secular society.
No one knows how many American Jews have left the fervently Orthodox fold, although most are believed to have come from the New York area. There are no statistics, and, until Footsteps was created, no organization to help them learn how to make it on the outside.
While the organized Jewish world doesn't usually think of Chasidic dropouts as "Jews in need," outsiders can't begin to imagine how frightening and complicated the everyday world can seem to a person who only knows the carefully controlled cocoon of Satmar, Skver or Bobov.
Particularly for a young person, whose departure can be hasty and unplanned, the road out of the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Williamsburg or Crown Heights is fraught with confusion and loneliness -- and sometimes drug abuse.
"People who have decided to make this transition don't have a place to go," says Hella Winston, the author of "Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels."..
...late February he met the founding director of Footsteps, 24-year-old Malkie Schwartz, an ex-Lubavitcher.
She introduced him to the few dozen other ex-Chasidim in her organization, and he enrolled in the GED class.
Winston recently heard from a young man who spent six months sleeping in New York City parks and subways after he left his Chasidic community.
"He had nowhere to go," Winston says. "America is a very individualistic society, and for people leaving a community it's important to have one to move into. Otherwise they run the risk of becoming lost."
Samuel Heilman, a professor of sociology and Jewish studies at the City University of New York, agrees.
"Missing their families" is a major problem, says Heilman, the author of "Defenders of the Faith: Inside Ultra-Orthodox Jewry." "For most people in the haredi world, the single biggest part of their lives, and the part that outsiders are often envious of, is connection to family and community."...
A support system like Footsteps didn't exist when Schwartz left Crown Heights five years ago.
She was 19, and knew she would be expected to marry soon. That's often the point at which young Chasidim who are unsure about their faith or their lifestyle make the move to leave, Winston writes, before their decision will impact their future families.
"I felt I couldn't make this decision for myself and for the large number of kids that would follow," Schwartz says. "I wanted an education."
She moved out, enrolled in Hunter College with financial aid and got her bachelor's degree.
But it was tough to go it alone. In December 2003, she organized a meeting for what she hoped would become a support group for former Chasidim. Twenty people showed up, and Footsteps was born.
Schwartz runs everything out of her apartment. GED classes, support groups, art and writing therapy groups, and discussions on health, sex and relationships are held at ad-hoc spaces around the city. Once a month there are sessions on life skills.
Footsteps has received grants from the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, the Alan B. Slivka Foundation, the Jewish Foundation for the Education of Women and an anonymous donor, and in early December was accepted into Bikkurim, a program that provides office space and technical support for Jewish start-ups in New York City.
More than 200 former Chasidim have passed through Footsteps; about 40 are currently active, mostly young Jews in their 20s. One thing Schwartz would like to offer is a halfway house, a temporary safe space for those just leaving their communities...