The Journey to a New CW in St. Louis

I first came to the L.A. Catholic Worker 14 years ago, just a few days after my 20th birthday. Looking back, I had no idea what I would be getting into (maybe I still don’t), and if you had told me then that one day I would be starting yet another LACW Sister House, I would have had no idea what to think. It was my first time taking a train. As I climbed aboard Amtrak, I was heading to a place I had never been to before, and looking to try a lifestyle that was outside of what I had been taught was possible. I guess it seemed like an adventure. I was going to help run a soup kitchen on Skid Row, which is the heart of homelessness in L.A., and L.A. is considered the capital of homelessness in the U.S. I was looking for something different and I figured at the Hippie Kitchen I would be jumping right in. Who would have guessed I would end up spending seven years with the Los Angeles Catholic Worker?

This essay originally appeared in the February 2024 issue of the L.A. Catholic Worker’s Catholic Agitator.

Since joining the movement, I have had the opportunity to travel all over the U.S. visiting and living with different Catholic Worker communities. As I have traveled here and there around the country in recent years, the truth has dawned on me: Permanent encampments are now a common feature all over the U.S. While the realities of L.A.’s Skid Row seemed like an anomaly at the beginning of my Catholic Worker career more than a decade ago, they have become entrenched as part of everyday U.S. life. I think of how in grade school we learned that during the Great Depression, there was a name for the encampments created when the capitalist system was incapable of housing everyone: Hoovervilles. The perspective of time allows us to judge widespread encampments from that era more cognizantly than we were prepared for in our parallel moment. Successive administrations at all levels are seemingly unable—if not unwilling—to tackle this problem. In my hometown of St. Louis, the local government is no different than the state or federal agencies; they scarcely even want to acknowledge the problem of houselessness. They want it literally to become invisible (though this is increasingly impossible), while at the same time they refuse to actively address the problem. So, when people wound up sleeping on the lawn of city hall, how did the government respond? With a late-night raid by police. Their actions were so shameful, they knew they had to try to conceal them with the cover of darkness.

It is no wonder that just as soon as we announced our intent to bring a concrete Catholic Worker presence back to St. Louis, we immediately started getting inquiries: “Have you found a place yet? I know someone with nowhere to stay.” “I wish the Catholic Worker in St. Louis was up and running, I am in need of housing for a few nights.”

In our city, the Mississippi Riverfront is one place you will find permanent encampments. I was down there one night recently passing out hot food and supplies when a fellow abruptly redirected our chit chat asking me and my friend, “What are Catholics known for?” Startled by the turn and unsure of where he was going, “Well, I guess that depends on who you ask,” is how I answered honestly. It turned out that “charity,” was the response he was looking for. “Catholics are known for charity.” “Yet St. Louis is a very Catholic city and look at how many people are sleeping out here?” he continued. “I saw a mother and her baby sleeping out here the other night. What will it take? Will a baby have to die from cold on these streets? Where are all the Catholics?” “We could make a start here in St. Louis. We could show the rest of the country that if you care these problems can be fixed,” he concluded before heading off into the night among the blocked off streets and elevated railway lines.

“What will it take? Will a baby have to die from cold on these streets? Where are all the Catholics?”

Our friend that night was correct. What will it take? The need is large. Chrissy, Lindsey, and I know we will not be able to help everyone in the St. Louis area. But we return to the words of Catholic Worker co-founder Dorothy Day: “Often we believe that there is little we can do. But let us do all we can to lighten the sum total of suffering in this world.” We hope that if we make a start others will too, as they are able. We are going to open a Catholic Worker house of hospitality. We hope it will be a spring of sustenance to those without food, a safe haven to those without a place to sleep, and a headquarters for the revolution of the heart Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin taught. However, we need help. The inflation and high interest rates that make life harder for the working classes also make it more difficult for us as we try to find and purchase a home. If you are in a place of abundance at this time please consider helping us financially as we work to “build the new world in the shell of the old.”

You can help the St. Louis Catholic Worker purchase a house by making a donation at their GoFundMe.

Cover photo: “The Wall,” by Geoffrey Gallaway via Flickr. Used under a CC 2.0 license. Columbus Square, St. Louis.