Learning to be human: the work of hospitality
Jo Frew writes about faith in action
Martha House is a house of hospitality in Tottenham. It is a way to support the homeless and lonely. I attend Tottenham Meeting, and almost four years ago my partner and I set up Martha House and have been living there, supporting the residents, ever since. We take referrals, settle people in, get them connected to helpful organisations, and try to keep things ticking over, as well as cover all the costs from our earnings and donations.
I arrived in London sixteen years ago from a small Scottish town, shy and with limited exposure to other cultures, but somehow I have found myself rooted in north east London. I am now almost four years into hosting forced migrants from all around the world with my gregarious Irish partner, Conor Cregan – living simply, taking risks and with no idea who will come through our door next.
We get a lot wrong. I had no idea that in most cultures there is no conversation during meals, but we have set up the rhythms of the house so dinner times are when we get together and we have a weekly house meeting over brunch. This can be hard on our guests for other reasons. We don’t know what it’s like to have lost all your self-worth because of sexual exploitation. We don’t keep the same gender roles or hierarchies as some cultures. (I used to do a delivery job, driving a van and carrying crates full of vegetables around – that was shocking to some.)
But it works. We are human, we empathise, we listen, we try to build open, trusting relationships, and for some of our guests this is what they need. They are safe, they are welcomed, become part of making the house run, and hopefully find some sort of community.
We call it a house of hospitality, in the tradition of the Catholic Worker Movement. Peter Maurin, who, along with Dorothy Day, founded the Catholic Worker newspaper in New York in 1933, said there should be houses of hospitality in every parish. These would be local homes where those in need can find some of what they need: food, clothes, community, accommodation, welcome, work to do, safety. Everyone is at a different stage in their life. Some people just need a place to stay and have lots going on, others are rebuilding their lives from scratch.
Our guests
Our guests come from all over: refused asylum seekers from Ethiopia and Russia; refugees from Eritrea and Iran; women who have fled abusive marriages; people who were sent/brought to the UK as minors and now find themselves without status; EU citizens who have lost work and can’t access benefits. What they have in common is that they have no other option.
They might be waiting for the Home Office to process immigration claims, waiting for solicitors to put together a claim or, if allowed, trying to get work to save enough for a rent deposit and move on. Most of our guests are barred from working, however, so live in real poverty, where even a bus journey is a struggle. Waiting for immigration decisions can take years and that lifestyle takes its toll on people’s mental health, never mind the painful experiences that have led them to us.
Conor and I were involved in various communities beforehand. Conor was living in Giuseppe Conlon House, the base of the London Catholic Worker, who host twenty destitute men, and I was in a church community house in Hackney. We had made a decision early in our relationship that we wanted to do something similar together, to provide hospitality for people in need. We were lucky enough to know a Catholic organisation with money that they could invest (the Society of Passionists). So, we put in a proposal about what we wanted to do and they bought a house. The whole process took about a year.
After they had agreed to the project, as a medium term investment, we identified areas on good bus routes and began to look for houses. Martha House isn’t in a beautiful area, but it is busy and multicultural. There are plenty of things to do, as well as the necessary choice of buses to central London.
One of the things we were clear on is that we couldn’t live with strangers. In National Asylum Support Service (NASS) accommodation and night shelters, where many of our guests have lived, you can avoid interaction with people either because you have your own room (in NASS) or the shelter closes at 9am and doesn’t open until 8pm. You get your food prepared for you and someone else does the cleaning.
Our house isn’t like that. Everyone has a key and everyone has to take on some household jobs. Every night one person cooks, and whoever is at home eats together. Everyone cleans and everyone has to come to a weekly meeting. Not everyone likes these rhythms, but for some people it is exactly what they need. We try to be open with our guests to help them trust us, and as trust develops we see people flourish and a bit of the stress and depression is lifted.
Despite the cultural differences, language barriers and difficult experiences, there are times where our common humanity and need for community meet and we find real joy in the relationships we build. Moments of comfort, of laughter, of shared understanding that teach me, at least, what it means to be human without any of the social niceties we build up around ourselves in our own culture that prevent us from experiencing real human warmth.
Sanctuary
Today, the ‘hostile environment’ means that more and more people who are already struggling to get by will be in desperate need of sanctuary.
Like those who began the house of hospitality idea, we believe that every Area Meeting could fund and found a house of hospitality, finding young Quakers or people of faith who would be willing to be the live-in presence. It would be a huge statement of faith and hope, witnessing to our basic principles as Quakers – equality, truth, simplicity – and offering a faith-based challenge to those who support the hostile environment.
If there is money in an Area Meeting pot, is this something that Friends could consider? We have the house for five, maybe ten, years and after three and a half years we have already been able to help 125 people stay off the streets or out of other dangerous situations and find peace.
There is a concern among Friends to offer sanctuary to those in need. Is it possible to dream of something like a ‘house in every parish’?
Comments
Please login to add a comment
