House of Peace

What is the House of Peace? Some have told us it is just like a settlement house. Others have mentioned 'permanent supportive housing' as a catch-phrase. It's also been described as a live in 'program' to rehabilitate the homeless.  None of these fit because most essentially we are striving to create a home.  After that, the direction of our lives is up to us, and we are all committed to walking these paths together. Dorothy Day once said, “We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.” 

The theme of the House of Peace is "Welcome Home!" Simple indeed! Yet isn't this the great seeking of the human heart? To find our place in the world . . . our place where we are happy, safe, healthy, and wanted . . . our place where we can create or re-create our lives, our place where we can share bread at a common table, our place where we plan for our days and the ways of transformation, our place where we can re-connect and re-discover the beauty of our family.

On May 1, 2011, on the second floor of Dorothy's Place, folks began to move into a home! Struggles, work, play, music, laughter, delight, hurt feelings, forgiveness, conversations, loving, teaching, learning, and everything else that makes for human community -- it is all here! In every House graced by the presence of Dorothy Day, someone would eventually post a sign with her favorite Dostoevsky quote on it: "The world will be saved by beauty". This sign could be above a sink filled with dishes waiting for the work of someone's hands. Maybe it would just hang from the wall in the soup kitchen and gaze out upon a daily gathering of hungry or hurting human beings. But it might also find itself painted in a mural in a hallway hallowed by the running feet of little children living with formerly homeless folks who have blessed with discovering that change is possible . . . We have not yet posted this quote in Our House, but it will show up, somewhere, posted by someone, because beauty is here, and here the world will be changed!

Please consider ways in which you would like to become part of our family! Perhaps you might like to become part of our Community and serve the House as a coordinator/staff member? A great place to start gathering more information about House of Peace is here, at our website.

We look forward to hearing from you just as we look forward to sharing our lives and stories with you!

“Regardless of whatever reasons brought us to Soledad Street and to the House of Peace we are all members of this family, and we will strive to treat each other with respect and honor each other's dignity.  We wish for each other Peace! We are not so arrogant as to think that it is any one's job to 'fix' anyone else. Rather, it is our intention to practice 'the way of mutual liberation': we will walk with each other as companions as we all discover more about our possibilities and implement strategies for personal transformation.” -opening of the Dorothy Day House of Peace Charter