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The St. Louis Catholic Worker is the latest addition to the Los Angeles CW's sister house network of communities started by LACW alumni. Theo who spent 7 years with the house in LA wrote this short intro peace in the February 2024 Catholic Agitator (found in its entirety here).
Find out how to contribute to our efforts to start a house of hospitality here.
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I first came to the L.A. Catholic
Worker 14 years ago. It was 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 life-
style 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 con-
sidered 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?
Since joining the movement I have
had the opportunity to travel all over
the U.S. visiting and living with
different Catholic Worker commu-
nities. 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 invis-
ible (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 aware of a mother and daughter in
need of housing for a few nights.”
In our city, the Mississippi River-
front is one place you will find per-
manent 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. “Catho-
lics 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.
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 head-
quarters for the revolution of the heart
Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin taught.
However, we need help. The infla-
tion 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”
that Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin
often talked about.
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