St. Francis House

 

I only had a short bit of time to visit but my impression from my brief stay of just a couple of nights at Saint Francis House is that it might be the quietest Catholic Worker I’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting.

Food for the house comes largely from a weekly Trader Joe’s donation on Sunday mornings. Extra food is also handed out to friends of the community who stop by after the TJ run.

Monday evening sees their open meal where folks can stop by and get a warm meal and hang out for some community and conversation. As at many Catholic Workers their front porch is a favorite hang out location.

The general chill vibe of the house was disturbed one morning. At about 6:30 AM I awoke to the sound of vacuuming. A bit early I thought but for all I knew a regular occurrence at Francis House. As I descended from my third floor guest bedroom I learned this was no regular cleaning project. Sometime during the night, hours before, someone didn’t make sure the tricky second floor toilet had stopped running after its use. The result: much of the second floor had flooded while everyone slept. It was a real mess with water making its way all the way down to the first floor.

At this CW there is usually only someone "on house" in the evenings and on weekends. The house is "closed" at other times but many of the folks who stay there are still around during those hours. 

 

Francis has, as many CWs do, a nice little garden too!

Jesus People

While not a Catholic Worker community, I had met some of the folks from Jesus People USA at this past spring’s Bloomington CW hosted Ohio River Valley Gathering and thought I’d check out how this much larger intentional community operated.

Home to about 150, JPUSA (often referred to phonetically in conversation as ǰ-pu-sa) boasts a coffee roastery and cafe, a recording studio and record label, Art studios, an ebay store, building supply company, skate shop, and a t-shirt printing operation.

Community members participate in a common purse and participate in the work of these projects or of the work of their day to day community life (cooking, cleaning, etc.) and receive room and board and a monthly stipend.

Folks don’t always get to choose the work that they do at JPUSA. Traditionally their formation has been fairly top down but they are currently going through a restructuring in the aim of giving more communal input on operations.

The profits of their various businesses are used for the community’s expenses and also to fund a number of the group's charitable organizations. Primary among these are JPUSA’s homeless services including a number of shelters. They boasted of having the only shelter that could accommodate (without having to seperate) families in all of Chicago.