Ella Chatfield-Stiehler

Dear Friends,

As I sit writing this letter, it is mid-January and at Catholic Worker Hospitality House (CWHH) we are settling back into our usual work routine after a lovely, if hectic, holiday season. I’m thinking about all the generous support we received from before Thanksgiving through New Year’s from you, our faithful donors, that enable us to continue our work with those in need in our community. I think especially of our Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners when so many of you brought prepared food – mashed potatoes, stuffing, ham or turkey, pies and cookies – that enabled us to host bountiful feasts for over 150 people each time.

These dinners are such enjoyable events partially because I get to see so many friends who have supported us faithfully for years. It’s a joy to see them and experience the goodwill they project. The same can be said for the guests coming to partake in the meal. Some are the folks we see every day, while others are former regulars who now only come “home” on our holiday events. Either way, they too bring a sense of joy that makes the day special. These meals epitomize a hidden benefit of our work at Catholic Worker Hospitality House: that we are surrounded by so much joy in our work.

But people often don’t realize this aspect of our work. Over the years when I tell folks what I do, I often hear, “It must be so hard doing your work, I could never be around so much brokenness and sadness. The people you serve, aren’t they scary and difficult to be around?” True, it can be difficult to see someone distraught over being without a place to stay for the first time or in the depths of addiction and not willing to make needed changes. And, yes, some people can be difficult, but all work has its difficulties and difficult people.

But the sadness and the difficulties are a minor part of our work. At night when I do an examination of the events of my day, I am regularly amazed by how much goodness, kindness, and generosity I have encountered. Whether being warmly greeted by guests and staff when I arrive at the dining room early in the morning or seeing a volunteer interacting lovingly with a guest at the dining room or a donor chatting with me for twenty minutes after delivering a tray of pasta or the laughter I hear from the backyard of our Second Ave boarding house; there is just so much joy. I know none of us are always good or full of joy and goodness, but when we’re around Catholic Worker Hospitality House we all are trying to be the best versions of ourselves. I have to admit it’s quite nice being surrounded by love in the guise of kindness and generosity.

Ideally this spirit of love begins with the staff of CWHH. If we’re doing our job properly, we’re setting the tone of kindness, acceptance, and joy. Then, it is amplified by our volunteers and donors. Finally, our guests hopefully respond by being kind and joyful as well, which inspires us to respond in kind which perpetuates a self-reinforcing loop of goodness. Goodness is infectious.

Now I’m not as naïve and pollyannaish as I sound in the above paragraphs. I know there is a lot of meanness in the world. There are people who are selfish, greedy, dishonest, and full of bad intentions. All one needs to do is read the paper or watch the news on a daily basis and you’ll be inundated with such activity. I also know there are people living with untreated trauma and/or addiction that makes their lives and the people around them miserable. I often think of the line from the poem Desiderata: “Exercise caution in your business affairs for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere the world is full of heroism.” I also think of a common refrain from Alcoholics Anonymous meetings when considering a person’s story of addiction and recovery: “look for the similarities, not the differences.” I read that as “look for the good, not the bad.” At CWHH we have chosen to focus on the good, not the bad. We try to make the good the focus of our life. And you know what? By trying to be good and loving we find ourselves being surrounded by love on a daily basis; it’s really nice being around folks who are trying to be the best versions of themselves.

 

In Christ’s Peace,

Peter Stiehler
For all of us at
Catholic Worker Hospitality House

 

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In the above letter I wrote about how I’m surrounded by people trying to be their best by serving those in need in our community. Sadly, this attitude of self-sacrificing love isn’t as prevalent as we would hope. Our country seems to be entering a period in which supposedly devout Christians, both Catholic and evangelical, are pushing for extreme actions against immigrants, those with different worldviews, and the weak and vulnerable. It is really sad seeing folks who espouse a faith based on selfless love acting in such unloving ways. Then there are the super- wealthy who are using the power of their great wealth to benefit themselves at the expense of the rest of society by working to lower their own taxes and rolling back environmental, work place, and healthcare regulatory safeguards. The selfishness is astounding.

I recently came across the following quote by Aldous Huxley: “It’s a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one’s life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than “try to be a little kinder.” I love it. I may be reading too much into this quote, but I think “kind” includes being loving, compassionate, self-sacrificing, and being concerned with the needs of the other. May we all strive to be a little kinder in the coming days, months, and years when, I fear, kindness will lacking in the highest halls of power.

Finally, as these folks claim to be doing the will of God, I thought I would offer a few passages from scripture which offer a counter perspective.

 

When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The
foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as
yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus 19:33-34

God defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner
residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who
are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.

Deuteronomy 10:18-19

Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.
Proverbs 30:8b

In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith…There is neither Jew nor
Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in
Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3: 26-28

If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will
have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. Truly I tell you, it is hard for
someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 19:21, 23

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you
will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and
money.
Matthew 6:24

Dear Friends,

At this time, there is so much one could write about the state of the world and the country in which we now live. We thought about sending around again a newsletter we wrote in December 2016; many are feeling the same fear. But after so many years, it’s clear that the world in which we find ourselves is not about one person, or one electorate, or one country.

This year, we have seen neighbors go to a city council meeting and say horrible things about unhoused people because of our county’s attempt to turn an old hotel into affordable housing for unhoused people. The citizens of this town recalled two city council members who voted to approve this housing. We have also witnessed our governor and local officials argue to the Supreme Court (and win) that cities should be allowed to arrest people for the crime of….not having housing. Currently, there are people in jails across the country who are incarcerated for “illegal camping,” for the crime of being homeless.

Thus, this lack of compassion towards others is seen throughout the body politic.

I have long thought that people and their political leaders despise homeless people, or at least despise seeing unhoused people, because attheir core, they are afraid. I used to think this was so because they were afraid of unhoused people themselves; they confused the way people appear with “dangerousness.” This is amplified by the media. There have been years of segments on news channels about San Francisco, for example, as an incredibly dangerous city. However, the images that were shown for shock value were of people forced to live on the street, or of tents on the street, or of human waste and debris on the street. Similarly, there was a candidate for office in Los Angeles who ran on a “tough on crime” platform and the images in his campaign ads when he spoke of crime were of…tents and shanties on sidewalks and under freeway overpasses. In other words, there was a conscious and cynical conflating of people living in extreme poverty with criminality.  I believed this was what led to the fear of people who were unhoused.

And while this may be so, I believe the fear we have about seeing homeless people runs much deeper than this. I believe that many of us are afraid to feel truly, deeply, compassionately sad. It is painful to be sad. It enters into our hearts and bodies in a way that can make us feel powerless. To avoid feeling sad, we cover it up with anger. This can be directed at the unhoused individuals, or at leaders who “refuse to clean this up.” In order to not feel sad, we ask ourselves: Why should I have to see this as I walk down the street? Why should the good citizens of [name the town] have to see this? As we direct anger at poor people, we argue that people are unhoused because they are bad – they use substances, they didn’t work hard enough, they left school, they are ill and refuse what is offered as treatment. And, for the sake of argument, what if this were all true? Would that mean that this person is not suffering and deserves to live without shelter and dignity? Of course not.

The Christmas story itself, a story that our culture wants to sanitize, has some hard truths about fear, misdirected anger, and terrible suffering. A story of a traumatic birth is followed by the story of refugees who are forced to flee to another country. The ones who stay have their children slain by a leader who fears a threat to his power. These stories still ring absolutely true today. We daily witness the Slaughter of the Innocents, the bombs and bullets killing children, ordered by leaders who are afraid of, and therefore despise, a populace. We see refugees fleeing violence and desperate poverty being vilified in this country. We are told they will be rounded up and deported.

If we were to be unafraid to feel sad, we might then learn that sadness – devoid of anger, of guilt, of shame – is an aspect of love. I learned this from a dear friend who lost her child some years ago. Her young daughter took her own life. This is, I hope for most of us, an unimaginable loss. My friend recently shared with me that she will always be sad. However, she has learned – with the help of others and through deep spiritual work—that she can rid herself of the anger, guilt, and shame that she has also carried. My friend told me that it was these emotions, not the sadness, that have almost destroyed her. Surprising to her, the sadness itself was bearable. And, that sadness existed because she loved her daughter so much; her sadness was a manifestation of that love.

Similarly, if we were to allow ourselves to truly feel sad, we might sense beneath our own sadness a compassionate love. In the months and years ahead, we are going to continue to see people acting out of fear of others. The cruelty towards others will worsen. Instead of joining in this fear, I hope for all of us that we allow ourselves to feel our own sadness, let it be the soil where compassion for those in need can take root, and let that compassion guide our actions.

 

Wishing you all love and grace,

Kate Chatfield
For all of us at Catholic Worker Hospitality House

SEPTEMBER 2024

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
— 1 Cor. 13:1-3

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were sealed for the day of redemption. All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice.
And be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ. So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love as Christ loved us.
— Ephesians 4:30 – 5:2

 

Dear Friends,

It is typical in these letters for us to put our best foot forward, projecting an image of being nice people who are always kind and loving, especially to the less fortunate we are lucky enough to serve. While that is generally true, there are times we fall short of this image. The hardest thing about our work is being consistently kind and loving. Being consistent in anything can be difficult, but being consistently kind and loving is really hard, even to those nearest and dearest to you. As the above quote from First Corinthians states, if we don’t do our work with love then all the good works we do is for naught.

At Catholic Worker Hospitality House, we set high ideals for ourselves. We not only want to serve nice meals and provide dignified housing for our guests; we also want to treat them in a way that comforts their soul. We want all we come in contact with to feel welcomed, accepted, and loved. It’s hard to do that if you’re barking at them.

Every morning, I start my day with prayer and meditation. Part of my daily prayer is, “Dear God, help me to be kind and loving to your people; may I comfort your people today.” Yet all too often within ten minutes of arriving at the dining room I’m snapping at someone. So much for high ideals. It’s so easy to be kind and loving when I’m in my prayer space, it’s another thing when I’m at the dining room being bombarded with requests by multiple people. There is a great quote from Fyodor Dostoyevsky that was beloved by Dorothy Day: “Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.” I can attest that it’s true.

What causes this occasional bad behavior? Sometimes we’re as busy as can be and that next request pushes us over the limit of our patience; other times we’re troubled with personal issues unrelated to our work; sometimes it’s jerky behavior by the person we’re dealing with; and sometimes we’re short-tempered from being just plain tired.

Whatever the reason, we realize our unkind behavior is not acceptable and we try to find ways to be our best. One remedy is to get plenty of rest, whether that’s getting plenty of sleep, regular vacations (which we are not afraid of) or not over scheduling ourselves. I have found that I’m most likely to be unkind at the end of the serving day, particularly if I’m trying to hurry off to another activity. In theory I know it’s best to slow down, be present, and try not to be a control freak (“How many times do I have to tell you not to do…”, “Get out of the shower now! You’ve been in there for 30 minutes!”), but it’s hard to put that theory into practice. I used to think I was an easy-going guy until I had children and got a job with a bit of authority. Suddenly all my fascistic tendencies emerged. One former guest regularly called me Benito, as in Mussolini. Ouch! I have also found that it is very helpful to do an examination of conscience at the end of the day to see where I was loving and where I could have been more so, with the hope that I will be better tomorrow. And as I mentioned earlier, starting my day with prayer helps to get me in a proper mindset.

Whenever we do fall short of being kind and loving we try to step back, calm down, ask for forgiveness, and keep on trying. It’s easy to beat-up on ourselves when we aren’t loving. But we need to keep on trying, remembering that we seek progress and not perfection. I think we’re a little nicer today than we were yesterday. We’re less likely now to be unloving to a guest, and when unkind, more likely to apologize promptly.
Despite the challenges we face at being consistently kind and loving, all of us at Catholic Worker Hospitality House enjoy the work we are doing, and usually really love it. Most of the time we are loving and giving to those we encounter in our work. In times of gratitude, we realize our work gives us the opportunity to help people in need and usually surrounds us with people who are trying to be the best versions of themselves. What a blessing; what a gift to live one’s life this way. So, whether you’re a guest, volunteer, or dropping off a donation and we’re less than loving know that we are sorry for our actions and that are trying to be more loving.

 

In Christ’s Peace (hopefully),

Peter Stiehler
Director
Catholic Worker
Hospitality House

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.
Ecclesiastes 3:1

Dear Friends,

Having operated our little Catholic Worker House for the past 28 years I’ve come to see the rhythm and flow to our work throughout the year. While we daily perform the Works of Mercy at our dining room, homeless shelter, and affordable housing units, there are other activities related to and supportive of our work that frame our year.

From early November through the end of December is the “holiday season.” This is usually an especially busy period as during this time, in addition to our usual work, we host special meals and events for our guests, and are the recipients of numerous food drives which replenish our depleted food stores. Our bank account also gets replenished at this time with donations from you, our generous donors. What we receive in this season sets the parameters of what we can do throughout the year, particularly in regards to ongoing maintenance projects, which I will talk more about below.

Then there is what I call “IRS Season” from January into March when we are sending out tax receipts and completing various federal and state tax forms to verify that we are abiding by our stated tax-exempt purpose (the public good for which the tax-exempt status is conferred). This is a time consuming process and can feel onerous, but I’ve come to understand and appreciate its importance: non-profits should be kept accountable. Basically, the IRS wants to see that the money raised is going for the exempt purpose and not just to pay a professional fundraiser and the salary of a director. This is NEVER an issue for us. We don’t use professional fundraisers and all the workers, especially the director, are daily engaged in direct service to those in need, and we have no administrative staff.

Then from March through May is what I jokingly call “High School Service Hours Season,” when students are frantically trying to complete their service hours requirements before graduation or confirmation. The hope is that they get to experience homeless and low-income folks as actual human beings and not as bogey-men or stereotypes. It’s also good for some of them to learn how to use a can opener, make pancakes, and the joy of hand washing dishes.

Finally, there is “Maintenance Season” from April through October. To be honest, maintenance season is really year-round as we are always responding to various plumbing, electrical, or mechanical issues. But it’s during “the season” that we initiate major maintenance projects on the various buildings out of which we operate our service projects: painting, building repair, fence repair, and whatever else needs doing. As I mentioned earlier, the state of our finances in January will determine which big projects we will be able to take on in the coming year and which will have to wait. I was recently planning this years’ maintenance season projects when…..

…. The season came early and with a vengeance. Besides the usual minor repairs, we’ve been hit with multiple expensive repairs in quick succession. First there was major car repair on the truck I use daily to move all our supplies, etc.; then I had to rebuild the fence at one of our boarding homes; and then the dryer we use daily for the dining room and shelter laundry broke and needed to be replaced. All of these would have been manage- able, but to top it all off one evening in early March I received a call that there was a significant roof leak at our Second Ave house. The next day when I went on the roof to assess the situation it became clear the roof needed replacing. The roof on that house is at least 30 years old and quite complicated as the house has been added onto numerous times during its existence. After receiving estimates, it looks like it’ll cost close to $32,000 to replace the entire roof, which we can’t afford. The question now is how much roof repair can we afford to do? To be honest, it’s a little stressful.

This brings up an issue of great importance in our work at Catholic Worker Hospitality House, that of stewardship. I’ve come to
think that a better name for “maintenance season” would be “stewardship season.” I believe strongly in the importance of stewardship. I take seriously my role as steward of the resources we have been entrusted with to serve those in need. We have a responsibility to maintain them for use now and into the future. We also want to keep our places looking nice for our guests, we don’t want to be slumlords.

I can easily be accused of reverting to my bourgeois background by putting so much emphasis, and resources, into keeping our houses well maintained, but, for me, part of providing dignified housing for those we serve is to keep our houses functioning well and looking nice. Who wants to live in a run-down house? I’ve also come to see stewardship as an aspect of the Works of Mercy. It’s hard to feed the hungry if the stove isn’t working. How well are we housing the homeless if the roof is leaking, the shower is broken, and the toilet is clogged? You get my point.

For 28 years we have daily practiced the Works of Mercy in service to those in need in our community, and tried to be consistent good stewards of the resources we have been entrusted with. We have been able to do this because of your great generosity, for this we are deeply grateful. We again make a plea for your continued support so we can continue our work…..and hopefully make the needed repairs on our roof and stay on top of other repair projects that are bound to turn up. Can you continue assisting us?

Christ’s peace,
Peter Stiehler
For all of us at
Catholic Worker Hospitality House

 

 

Just as the disciples didn’t recognize Jesus as they conversed on the road to Emmaus until they offered him hospitality and shared a meal together, so too do we not recognize Jesus in the faces of those we serve until we break bread together at our dining room and shelter. Emboldened by the risen Jesus we continue offering hospitality to those in need and doing our best to live out the Easter promise. In that spirit, we wish you all a HAPPY EASTER!

Dear Friends,

This time last year I was sure we were going to be closing our homeless shelter in the near future due to it no longer being needed.  Government efforts to house long-term homeless folks in our county combined with the imminent opening of a large new Navigation Center in Redwood City for the homeless with shelter and wrap-around services led me to believe that, by
the end of the year, our little homeless shelter would no longer be needed.

For most of the 26 years we have been operating our homeless shelter at Catholic Worker Hospitality House we were regularly inundated with many more people requesting shelter space than we had availability.  It has always been hard turning away more people than we accept.  Covid changed all that as there was a concerted effort by the government to prevent the spread of Covid by housing homeless people in local motels.  Almost overnight we saw a large drop in the number of people eating at our dining room and seeking shelter.

Further lessening the demand on our shelter has been San Mateo County’s commitment over the past few years to actively creating more permanent affordable housing for long-term homeless individuals. It has been so nice to see people getting housed who I thought would never get housing. We have been doing our part by providing a wide range of household goods to furnish their apartments once they move in.  It’s always the high point of my day, week, month when I help to furnish the apartment of a former guest and see how happy and thankful they are.  After years of being homeless, with the resulting precarity and humiliations, they now have the security and dignity of their own home.  Beautiful!

Now a year later, I have been proven wrong regarding the imminent demise of our little homeless shelter. The numbers of people seeking shelter has admittedly reduced, but we are still regularly at capacity, especially during the wet and cold season, and routinely, regrettably, turn people away due to lack of space. Clearly, our shelter is still a valued asset for those in
need in our community.

One thing we have noticed lately is the people now seeking to stay at our shelter are a more challenging population. In the past we had the luxury of cherry picking who we thought would be the easiest, least difficult guests. But that is no longer the case.  This makes sense as most of the “easy” homeless population are getting housed, leaving these “more challenging” people for us to serve.  Those who can complete a cumbersome and overly bureaucratic application process get housing, those who can’t—or won’t—don’t get housing.  What makes someone “more challenging” to have as a guest in our shelter?  It can be mental illness or sub- stance abuse or being just plain cantankerous or a combination of the three.  These conditions vary on a spectrum from one individual to another and aren’t always initially recognizable. These folks, while definitely in need of our services, can be very challenging to serve as their behavior is often disruptive to the other guests.  It is so frustrating seeing folks miss out on the possibility of obtaining permanent affordable housing with a resultant better quality of life because they are unable or unwilling to work the process. I want to scream out: “If you would just follow their process you WILL get permanent housing.”  I think of Greg who fits this category perfectly.  He either couldn’t or wouldn’t follow the process and ended up dying in his campsite.  Might he have lived longer if housed?

Another reason we have seen for the continued operation of our shelter is that the county is now rigorously enforcing a policy of no services to people who have not been verifiable residents of the county for less than 90 days.  At Catholic Worker Hospitality House we do not have that policy.  There is no lengthy verification process to determine eligibility for our shelter or dining room. We see people in need and react immediately, as best we can. Our extreme anti-bureaucratic stance, and refusal to accept government funding, means we serve people immediately.

While the rationale behind the county’s policy is understandable, it does leave some people in a very difficult situation.  We have had several shelter guests lately who could only stay at our place because they were new to the area. In December we had a man from Salinas stay with us for a couple of nights who had been dropped off in the area and spoke no English. What was he to do? What were we to do? We made space for him.  We are often the way station where people can stay until they have the requisite residency status to qualify for county run or funded facilities. We will be here to continue meeting that need.  So, the good news is, we will not be closing our shelter. But I guess the bad news is we will not be closing our shelter.  Nothing would make us happier than to close our shelter because there was no longer a need for it. Sadly, I don’t see that happening in the near future.

While Catholic Workers have historically made a career out of justifiably criticizing the government for a variety of reasons, not the least its not prioritizing the creation of affordable housing, we must now applaud all levels of government for devoting resources to providing permanent affordable housing to those most in need in our community. It is definitely making a difference in the lives of those we serve.  That said, I did read in the paper recently that upcoming state budget cuts will disproportionately affect the poorest residents by reducing funds for affordable housing, no surprise there.

There are still people, and probably always will be, who are in crisis or relocating and need the services our shelter provides.  We are committed to keeping our shelter open for these folks.  And whether housed or homeless there is a sizable number of people who need the resources our dining room provides.  We are committed to keeping our dining room open for these folks.  We are able to follow through on these commitments through your generous support.  We are thankful for your past support and plead for your continued generosity to enable us to continue serving those in need in our community.

 

In Christ’s Peace,

Peter Stiehler
For all of us at
Catholic Worker
Hospitality House