Street Retreat Stories

After several minutes of shifting and negotiating various levels of discomfort, I settled at fetal position. Laying there with hands sandwiched between my knees, I was determined to get some rest. It would not come easily under these circumstances. I would have to ignore the aching in every muscle of my body against the [...]

Until last summer I worked an organization called Mobile Loaves & Fishes, which serves the homeless in Austin and in five other cities across the country. A couple times a year, the MLF leadership takes employees and other members of the community out onto Austin’s streets for something called a Street Retreat.Street Retreat participants leave behind their [...]

Sleeping on the Sidewalk Sucks. A few weeks ago I went on a Street Retreat – my first. I came home from work Friday afternoon, took off my blazer and heels, put on track pants and sneakers, and grabbed my backpack stuffed with a water bottle, change of clothes, my driver’s license, and [...]

Daniel Sullivan, a Notre Dame student who joined us on the January 2013 Street Retreat  shared his paper with us: “You ain’t no tramp, are you?” Even though I was dirty, hungry, tired and had spent the previous night under a highway overpass, I still shook my head at “King” Harold’s toothless grin. [...]

The following is a paper by one of our January 2013 Street Retreat Participants, a Notre Dame student named Sam Baldazo: “There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.”  Poverty, like any other social [...]