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April 25, 2023By Mary Lim
“People become homeless not because they run out of money, but because they run out of relationships.” This is the line that Fr. Gregory Boyle, SJ used to explain the homelessness crisis in the United States when he visited Sacred Heart Parish to give a fundraising presentation, hosted by St. Francis Shelter Community. Relationships were the focus of his talk, and relationships, he said, are the key to his ministry in Homeboy Industries, based in Los Angelos, California.
St. Francis Shelter Community runs their ministry of sheltering the homeless and helping people in need by ascribing to this very concept of building and maintaining relationships. When people have run out of relationships, they often turn to less-than-ideal living options and coping mechanisms, which often lands them in a vicious cycle of shameful and disgraced living. When Fr. Greg Boyle visited Tucson on March 24, he said that “the only thing that can scale the wall of shame and disgrace is tenderness.” It is with incredible compassion, patience, love, and tenderness that the staff and volunteers of St. Francis Shelter are making a difference in Tucson’s homeless and low-income community.
St. Francis Shelter, based out of the facilities on the grounds of Sacred Heart Parish, is a transitional housing facility. It is a working shelter, which means that all the men who live there earn room and board. This group of formerly homeless men, now living in community, form the core of St. Francis Shelter Community and, assisted by volunteers, offer a variety of services to those in need in the local Tucson area.
The building that is being used as the main shelter right now has a rich history for both Sacred Heart Parish, and for the community of Tucson. When the church was founded in 1939, the building was used as a convent. As different orders came to run the parish, the building was used as classrooms, until the school was shut down in 1975, when the convent became a temporary home for Vietnamese refugee families. It wasn’t until 1988 that the first ministry to work with the homeless would start in the walls of the convent. Today, St. Francis Shelter is an organization run by grants and private donations to continue the ministry of helping the homeless by exhibiting tenderness and nurturing relationships.
Like many other organizations, the Covid-19 pandemic saw to it that St. Francis Shelter underwent a lot of change. With the nationwide shutdown came the closure of many of St. Francis Shelter’s programs, including their winter shelter and their ability to staff the shelter 24 hours a day.
With all of these changes, St. Francis Shelter is now in a position of reimagining the big picture of the ministry that they bring to the Tucson community and restructuring their services so as to be of the most help to those in the greatest need.
Since the onset of the pandemic, and with the world and the economy trying so hard now to catch up, St. Francis Shelter has seen an increase in senior men who have been priced out of their apartments because of their fixed income. These men are then put on a waitlist for affordable senior housing, but in the meantime, they are without a home. “That’s our niche,” says Director of Operations, Shawn Milligan. “While they are waiting, we are a transitional housing place before they find senior or low-income housing,” which is a huge deal when the only other option for many of these men is the streets. The senior men who come to St. Francis Shelter pay just a small fee to receive lodging and three meals per day.
There are some men at the shelter who have been there for a few years; living and working at St. Francis Shelter is a good fit for them. These are the men who have been there since before the pandemic; they may not have the skillset to hold a job elsewhere, and so they earn their room and board by doing the daily upkeep of the facilities at the shelter, including landscaping and security for Sacred Heart Parish, and filling orders at the food pantry onsite.
Aside from these men who have made St. Francis their long-term home, the target population that the shelter would like to serve is retired, sober, senior men who need transitional housing as they wait for affordable housing to become available. If someone comes to the shelter with substance abuse struggles, St. Francis will refer them to one of the many other shelters in the area that specialize in substance abuse. Because St. Francis no longer has 24-hour staff, they are not equipped to give clients who struggle with substance abuse the help that they deserve.
St. Francis Shelter does provide additional help to all other community members in need other than just homeless senior men. The uptick in housing prices isn’t the only way in which the economy has been hit by the effects of the pandemic – these effects can be seen far and wide in the cost of everything. Especially in the last year, as many of the financial aid programs that were put in place because of Covid are now ceasing, more people are in greater financial need. Many elderly, people on fixed incomes, and people on disability have seen benefit cuts. St. Francis aims to step in to help these populations.
There is an ongoing food pantry at St. Francis Shelter which opens on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 9am to 11am. On average, about one hundred people come through to receive food on a weekly basis. The food pantry has been a steady service program at St. Francis Shelter, and now they are looking to expand their services even more.
“We want to be good stewards and help those in need,” says Milligan, “More people have less to spend. We do a lot of good for those who really need it.”
St. Francis Shelter is part of the "Food Reclaiming Project" through Southern Arizona Food Bank, which means that they pick up food from Walmart and Natural Grocers that is nearing expiration, or things that otherwise can’t be sold (damaged or open, but still good). St. Francis Shelter picks up food for both the St. Francis Shelter and for Sister Jose Women’s Center. Thanks to this program, many people who might not have had the ability to purchase groceries will now be able to cook fresh food rather than buying fast food.
St. Francis Shelter also partners with GAP Ministries and the Housing First program. In addition to the men’s shelter, St. Francis is hoping to offer an overnight winter shelter and summer shelter. They are in the process of looking for spaces for these programs now.
The shelter partners with the City of Tucson Housing First program to offer showers to the homeless on Wednesdays from 1pm to 4pm by hosting a shower truck on the Sacred Heart campus.
St. Francis Shelter has a comprehensive volunteer program in which people can take part in the mission to bring the love of God to those who are living in the margins in homelessness and financial unrest. They also accept donations of anything from food and clothes, to hygiene items, and medical supplies. You can support St. Francis' mission by contributing financially with the Arizona Charitable Tax Credit, as well.
The staff, volunteers, and residents of St. Francis Shelter are truly living in the footsteps of St. Francis. In the words of Fr. Greg Boyle, they are striving every day to “create a place where people can feel cherished.”
Homelessness and financial instability are huge issues for our country, and it is so hard to pinpoint how to address them. There are many things that the people who are experiencing these crises need, and there are endless opinions from all over about what we should and shouldn’t be giving them. In the end, none of the material assistance will last much longer than the moment in which they are needed, but what will last and make the real difference is the relationship that was forged in the giving of the assistance – the love that is shown to each individual, because of the love of Christ for every one of us.
“Kindness is the only non-delusional response.” – Fr. Greg Boyle, St. Francis Shelter Fundraiser, March 24, 2023