Dear Friends of Joseph House: According to an article we read, a historian has postulated that periods of civil unrest in our country follow a 50-year cycle. That’s about how long it takes for society’s unresolved issues to reach a boiling point. The last time our nation saw widespread protests and demonstrations—some peaceful, some not—was…
The COVID-19 pandemic is requiring many people to stay at home to help curb the spread of the virus. Some are taking advantage of this time to tackle do-it-yourself projects around the house. The men residing at the Joseph House Workshop had a head start on this idea. They recently finished a major painting project…
Dear Friends of Joseph House: We’re all familiar with Christmas carols but some of our favorite songs of the season are Advent hymns. They tend to get drowned out because Christmas music starts playing on the radio at Thanksgiving and stops on Christmas Day. This doesn’t make a lot of sense unless Christmas is just…
The Joseph House Workshop is a residential program for homeless men that teaches life-skills needed for employment. It is not an emergency shelter, but a long-term therapeutic program that provides men a supportive place to live and opportunities to grow in all aspects of life. Men who enter the program spend the first three months…
Dear Friends of Joseph House: We read with interest about a series of meetings that started at Harvard Divinity School between Nuns and Nones, “nones” referring to young adults, or millennials, who profess no religious affiliation (about 25% of the population). Apart from the obvious differences—such as the age gap—the two groups discovered they share…
Dear Friends of Joseph House: In 1944, a letter was printed in the Stars and Stripes newspaper that contained the following: It is 0200 hours and I have been lying awake for an hour listening to the steady even breathing of the other three nurses in the tent, thinking about some of the things we…
Dear Friends of Joseph House: Money is a curious thing. It can buy books but not intelligence; finery but not beauty; entertainment but not happiness; luxuries but not culture; a house but not a home. Money can give us what we want, but not always what we need. It is our servant, not our master….
The goal of the Joseph House Workshop is to help homeless men transition to stable, productive living. We know the goal has been reached when a resident completes the program and has a steady job and the means to live independently. There are also signs along the way that show hard work, commitment, initiative, and…
Dear Friends of Joseph House: A prison can keep someone locked in, and also locked out. In Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle, the protagonist, Jurgis Rudkus, finds himself homeless, destitute, and ravenously hungry. He staggers up and down the city streets looking for work, fighting hunger-induced fatigue. His struggle is to no avail: he is…