News Archive

It is with much sadness that we bid farewell to another long time fixture of the Catholic Worker Hospitality House, Judy Pena. Judy hasn’t died, but her health has deteriorated to the degree that she is no longer able to live on her own and now resides at a care facility in Gilroy. Therefore, we will no longer be seeing her at the dining room.  Sadly because of COVID I will not be able to visit her, although I will be able to stay in touch by phone.

Judy has been a regular at the dining room and shelter for 24 years. Shortly after we opened our dining room we met her at a conference at Saint Bruno’s Church. When she learned about our dining room she said she just had to be part of it. Soon she was a daily volunteer serving food, chatting up our guests, and cleaning up after serving time. A couple of years later when we had a job opening at the shelter she was briefly an overnight staff person. While working at the shelter some of the guests thought Judy would be a pushover, they soon learned otherwise. Judy holds the record for kicking out the most guests in a single night when one Saturday night she told four rowdy guests to leave after repeated warnings to curb their behavior. Even after she stopped working at the shelter she was a regular volunteer at the dining room for another decade until her health prevented her from working. The place was so important to her that even when she could no longer work she would still come every morning just to socialize with the other guests. As her health declined I started giving her a ride home from the dining room every morning, which gave us some nice one-on-one time. She was always pleasant on the drive home, even if we had arguments that morning at the dining room (which was not uncommon).

Like the rest of us, Judy is no saint, and can be quite difficult at times (as many of her fellow volunteers can attest to). But throughout her life she was a person who volunteered her time to serve those in need, whether it was working with the United Farmworkers Movement to improve the lot of laborers in the fields, with the Franciscans at the Poverello center serving the urban poor in San Francisco, or at our little dining room. Judy was always of service and was open and welcoming to all. A humble and giving life covers a multitude of sins.

Judy, thank you for your years of service and loving presence. You are and will be missed.  The place won’t be the same without you.

Dear Friends,

Thanksgiving will soon be upon us and Catholic Worker Hospitality House will once again host a Thanksgiving Dinner for all our guests, but with major changes to account for the COVID pandemic. We normally host a festive sit-down meal for over 200 guests, but, sadly, this year we will only be providing hearty hot meals To-Go. We hate making this change, as it seems hardly festive, but the safety of our guests and volunteers makes it necessary.

In normal years we welcome any and all volunteers, realizing the great desire folks have to be of service for and with others on Thanksgiving. But this year we need to limit the number of people volunteering to serve food.

Where we do need volunteers is in food preparation.  Over the years our Thanksgiving Feast has been made possible by all of you who bring prepared food to share with our guests. Can you help us again this year? We are looking for people to bring one or more of the following:

• Turkey, cooked and carved to serve ten
• Mashed potatoes or stuffing for ten
• Vegetable dish for ten
• Pie, cake, or cookies
• Individual Sized juice, milk, or soda
• To-Go containers, napkins, plastic ware

If you can provide any of these items please call us at (650) 827-0706.

Food is to be brought to our dining room at St. Bruno’s Church, located at 555 W. San Bruno Ave., between 10 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day (Thursday, Nov. 26).  The meal will be served between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m..  PLEASE call to tell us what you can bring so we can plan accordingly.

Thank you so much for your continued generosity.

Peace,

Peter Stiehler

For all of us at Catholic Worker Hospitality House

At Catholic Worker Hospitality House we close our dining room and shelter for a week vacation several times a year.  These times off provide a necessary respite which enables us to remain kind and compassionate (most of the time) to those we serve.  It also gives us time to do some deep cleaning and light maintenance on the dining room and shelter.

We will be closing for our Fall Vacation after the dining room service on Friday, October 23.  The dining room and shelter will be closed for ten days until we reopen on Monday, November 2.

Peter Stiehler, for all of us at Catholic Worker Hospitality House

PERALTA BACKYARD

We are always trying to make our houses a little nicer for the folks who live in them. To that end I recently started working on transforming the backyard of our transitional house in Oakland from a drab uninviting space into a more welcoming and usable space. In mid September we removed an old rotting deck and installed a new 11’ x 13’ brick patio. Then we added mulch to trim the area and last week Kate ordered some patio furniture from an area carpenter. The space is already much more inviting! This winter, after we get a little rain, we will finish landscaping the backyard.

RESUMPTION OF SHOWER SERVICES

In mid-March as part of our response to the COVID-19 pandemic we stopped offering shower services to our dining room guests.  At the time so little was known regarding the spread of the virus that we felt it was wiser to halt shower services.  Our thinking was that offering showers posed too much of a risk to staff and shelter guests and it was more important to keep the dining room and shelter operating.

In mid-September during a Zoom Catholic Worker retreat I learned that House of Grace Catholic Worker in Philadelphia had continued shower services at their Free Health Clinic.  Johanna and Mary Beth who operate the house are both nurses and had consulted a doctor who said that if they cleaned the shower between uses it would be safe to continue offering shower services.  I was so happy to hear of this as I know how important showers are to our homeless guests.  So after six months of not offering shower services to our dining room guests we resumed offering this service in late September.  Needless to say, our guests are quite pleased with this new development!

THANKSGIVING DINNER PLANS

At Catholic Worker Hospitality House we have been lucky to continue our dining room and homeless shelter with only minor changes despite the dangers posed by the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic.  However, we are facing a tougher challenge regarding our annual Thanksgiving Dinner.  Thanksgiving Dinner is our biggest event of the year, both for guests and volunteers.  For the past twenty-three years we’ve hosted a traditional feast with over two hundred folks in attendance at St. Bruno’s Parish Hall.  Considering the situation with COVID-19 I don’t see us doing our usual indoor sit-down dinner this year.

Maybe by late November the pandemic will have abated enough to allow gatherings, but it’s just as likely that there will be a resurgence of the virus. Most likely we’ll have to offer our guests a Thanksgiving meal packaged To-Go.  It’s hardly the festive communal meal we’re accustomed to hosting, but considering the circumstances, it’s probably the best we can do this year.

Bottom line is we will do something for Thanksgiving, we’re just not sure how or what.  But doing nothing doesn’t seem an option.  I’m going to wait as long as I can to see what the health restrictions are and then come up with a definite plan.  I’ll keep you all updated on our Thanksgiving Dinner plans.

Many of you have regularly helped out in the past either by preparing food or volunteering.  It would be helpful to know who will be able to assist again this year.  Could you send an email to cwhhsb@gmail.com to let us know whether or not you’ll be able to assist?  It’ll be very helpful in our planning process.  Thanks!

In Christ’s Peace,

Peter Stiehler
Director
Catholic Worker Hospitality House

September 2020

Dear Friends,

August 6 marked twenty years that Pat Ford has worked as an overnight staff person at our homeless shelter.  When I asked him if he would be interested in the job he was a relatively new guest at the shelter. I didn’t know him well, but he seemed like a stable and responsible guy.  I had some concerns about whether he would work out, but we were desperate to find an evening staff person as the previous staffer had left for another job.
Why was I concerned?  As a Navy veteran and life-long conservative Republican, Pat seems like an odd match for a Catholic Worker homeless shelter.  While it quickly became clear that Pat was competent in his position, for the first few years Pat worked with us we regularly argued about politics. It felt like “The Odd Couple” or “Point Counterpoint.” “Crazy liberal!” and “Fascist!” were thrown around a lot.  It would have been so easy for both of us to look at our differences and not work together.  Instead we chose to focus on our common belief in service and caring for those in need in our community.  And the rest is history.  I think it’s fair to say that neither of us thought we would still be working together twenty years later.
Behind Pat’s gruff exterior is someone who really cares for our guests. As a former shelter guest and someone who went through hard times himself, he really feels their plight and goes the extra mile to assist them however he can.  He is much better than I am at motivating and assisting our guests in getting the services they need.
For new volunteers, particularly high school students, the shelter can be an intimidating place.  Pat invariably puts them at ease…and to work.  Whether it’s preparing food, cleaning up around the shelter, or sitting and talking with guests, he knows how to make sure they have a good experience volunteering at the shelter.  He’s also great at chatting them up, regaling them with stories of the shelter or his travels around the world.
Pat’s commitment to service and his kindness to those we serve makes him an invaluable asset to our work.  While I have a vision of how I want our shelter to operate, Pat has extensive practical knowledge forged from years of experience at the shelter. I regularly rely on him for advice on who to bring into the shelter and how long to keep them. If I have a “great” new idea for the shelter I have learned to run it past him first to see if it’s a feasible plan.  He also has brought great stability and an institutional memory to the shelter with his ability to remember past guests and whether they were good or problematic.
Pat has also been a great ambassador between Catholic Worker Hospitality House and St. Bruno’s Parish, where we operate the shelter and dining room. He chats up parishioners, particularly those leery at having a homeless shelter on church grounds.  If there is a question about our work or a concern about one of our guests, Pat is there to educate and take care of any problems.  Parish staff relies on Pat to make sure the church doors are locked, gates closed, and parish grounds are secure.  Considering that the existence of our dining room and homeless shelter at St. Bruno’s Church is dependent on the parish’s continued acceptance of our work, it’s hard to underestimate the importance of the goodwill Pat has engendered around the parish for the longterm viability of the shelter and dining room.
Thank you Pat for your many years of devoted service. The place wouldn’t be the same without you.  I hope we have many more years working together in service to those in need in our community.

In Christ’s Peace,

Peter Stiehler
For all of us at
Catholic Worker Hospitality House

BE CAREFUL OF WHAT YOU ASK FOR

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting at my desk in the basement of our Second Avenue boarding house resting after having wrapped up several maintenance projects.  I was thinking, “Well, what am I going to do now?”  Just then I heard a steady stream of water dripping on boxes in the basement. “Oh no, this can’t be good.” I ran upstairs to discover the water was coming fromthe upstairs bathroom where one of the residents was taking a shower. After investigating the situation it became clear that we needed to do a major rebuild of the shower.  While such a project is never a good thing, there were two bright spots: first, we have a second shower for the guests to use while we make needed repairs and second, Mike DiCampli, one of the house residents, told me he knows how to do tiling.  So it was clear we could do the repairs quickly and cheaply.  Together Mike and I did the needed demolition and repairs and we once again have a functioning, non-leaking, shower.  As usual, Mike provided the brains and I provided the muscle and the money.  Thank you Mike! In the future I’ll be more careful about looking for projects to keep myself occupied.