What is a home?
We know it’s where the heart is — that there’s no place like it. It’s where you rest your head, and that doesn’t always mean a pillow. It’s a place where you take comfort and respite from daily trails, where you are welcome in any shape and form. Home is a harbor of physical and mental repair.
For thousands of Portland women living in crisis, be it through homelessness, abuse or despair, home was Rose Haven. Women who lined the sidewalk in the early hours on Third Avenue anticipated hot coffee and a meal inside, and more importantly, a community among women who shared a part of their lives, where they could learn new skills and explore their own expressive outlets. They also found that rare sanctuary on the streets, a place of unconditional safety.
On June 30, Rose Haven locked its doors on Third Avenue for good. The building is undergoing a major renovation, and the organizations primary sponsor is redirecting its funding from hospitality to the equally pressing need for housing for homeless women. Both are needed improvements in the community, but in the transition, Rose Haven will exist in the hearts of Sister Cathie Boerboom of the many volunteers and community leaders who are determined to find these women a new home. And it will exist in the hopes of so many women who still long for that safe and welcoming place.
The physical existence of a home can vanish so easily — a health emergency, a lost job, a tear in the safety net of our lives. A depleted pension, the loss of affordable housing, health insurance pulled from underfoot, depression and illness — all of these things rip a house asunder, but they don’t destroy the inherent need for a home.
Home is more community than it is four walls — that’s never truer than after you lose the four walls. Home can be the city of Portland, or the United States of America, celebrated on the Fourth of July.
But look around you — unwelcome signs hang in the eyes and policies of this larger community. They are posted in funding cuts and policy manipulations that deplete public health care and housing assistance and trample livable wages and mental health parity. The signs are swinging in attitudes that categorize the homeless and poor as nuisances to the image of prosperity and progress. If you are on the streets, the signs are posted at every turn.
That’s why Rose Haven is so important to our community. There are other havens in Portland, no doubt, but Sister Cathie Boerboom and her staff, volunteers and supporters specifically welcomed women on the edge, providing them with the basics — coffee, food, phones and resources — and the complex necessities — counseling, advocacy, training and hope. If you have never seen Rose Haven on a busy morning, you might not comprehend the joyous, crowded home this organization nurtured, but it was unique among social services. To reestablish this, they need an affordable, centrally located site and secure funding. If you can help, please do. If you know of affordable rental space or a foundation interested in helping, please make the connection. A house can be anywhere, but our home is all around us.