She took over my grandmother’s house, the one that was supposed to be left to her in a will that disappeared. My parents were separated. My father worked at the fish market and one good thing that came out of all this was that when he visited on weekends we…

Almoner is a middle English word, coming from Medieval Latin through Old French, meaning “one who is responsible for distributing alms.” The word has fallen out of use in the U.S., but thankfully, here at St. Josaphat the action hasn’t. 1180 Gift Cards were distributed to hundreds of homeless people…

We found the wonderful Clare at PAWS in Chicago where my friend was volunteering. The first cat struck out because it was in a nipping mood despite my friend telling me that it had never did that before. Personally I really didn’t care for cats. She was sitting amongst all…

All I wanted to do was write some simple thoughts down, send them out in an email and the job would be done. “Let Nothing Disturb.” Hmm. this often seemed like a cute joke; since, oftentimes things do disturb. While using the computer at the Harold Washington Psychiatric Center, a.k.a…

TOP TEN REASONS WE STILL HAVE HOMELESSNESS. 11. Pigeons wouldn’t have anyone to play with. 10. Pope needs to write another Encyclical. Has writer’s block. 9. Bishops, Priests and Cardinals too busy arguing over which prayers to say during a pandemic. 8. Congregation still praying that, “We will be the…

Yesterday was interesting. I had two events planned. I had some googling of directions for the whole weekend trying to be efficient. After all this work I got up and the paper I had written everything down on vanishes. I repeat the process, taking more time. It often seems when…

My story of becoming homeless is quite simple. It isn’t an unusual tale. I gave up. In December 0f 2007, I was working as a temp. when our jobs were changed to on call employees. Basically, this left me out of work at Christmas time, again. I had seen Union…