“People have a right to feel like they can worship and be safe, not fearful,” said Georgia Boothe, vice president for child welfare at Children’s Aid, which has helped Mr. Polite in the past. “But I also know this man is very troubled.”

It was during a gay pride rally for Barack Obama on the steps of City Hall in 2008 where Ms. Quinn first met Mr. Polite. She offered him the internship after hearing about his story, which was featured last year in a New York Times article about the Neediest Cases Fund, a yearly campaign that raises money to help social services agencies. Children’s Aid is one of eight organizations that receive funding from Neediest Cases.

Mr. Polite had first been taken out of his mother’s home when he was in kindergarten. He ran away at 13 and asked the Administration for Children’s Services to place him in foster care. The agency found conditions at his home to be unsanitary and complied with his request.

Then came a string of placements. Mr. Polite eventually was placed with foster parents just before he turned 21, the year children age out of the child welfare system in New York. He struggled with marijuana use while at Brandeis, was forced to take time off and had to enter rehabilitation and get a job. Mr. Polite learned he had bipolar disorder and was prescribed medications.

But his ability to stay on the medications was always difficult, loved ones said. He had serious psychiatric setbacks and struggled with drug use and delusions as he attempted to complete his studies.

“He was a really smart young person,” Ms. Boothe said. “He was really very determined to try and finish college, and we wanted to help him.” When he graduated in May, the hope was that Mr. Polite had figured out a path forward.

Children’s Aid hosts an event at its headquarters every year at which clients who have graduated from college return to serve as “credible messengers” for children still in the system and facing struggles.