What Home Is
Christmas 2024
by Julian
One night past midnight shortly before my seventeenth birthday, at my mother’s command, I hurriedly threw whatever I could of my meager belongings into a large plastic garbage bag, slung it over my shoulder, and headed out the front door. This was the last time I would call that house “home.” I walked through the still, quiet darkness of suburban neighborhoods until I reached the house of a friend, where I deposited the bag beneath an awning for safe keeping. Then I collapsed into a brief, fitful sleep on a nearby lawn.
Thus was I abruptly initiated into the world of adult independence, for which I was woefully unprepared. While many of my peers readied themselves for college, I felt paralyzed by the impacts of the troubled family life I had left behind, and overwhelmed with the bewildering challenge of having to suddenly make a life for myself in the world. Most of all, I felt profoundly alone.
I am grateful that what we hope to offer to our young guests at Dandelion House are some of the things that I lacked. In their own words:
House dinner.
“Dandelion House is my home. I can come here and know that I am safe. You showed me what love is, and what home is.”
“What I like about Dandelion House is the community. In my household we didn’t eat dinner together or talk about life, so doing that here has opened up my horizons for how I want to lead my family when I choose to have one.”
“Everyone here is ridiculously nice. You don’t know what you’re going to get out in the world, but then you come home to Dandelion House and there is something consistent here, a consistent amount of care, a consistent amount of openness. This is healing childhood scars for me.”
Dandelion House is my home. I can come here and know that I am safe. You showed me what love is, and what home is.
Apple press party
At Dandelion House, we strive to be more than shelter and food but a real home and a safe, caring environment where people can find rest and healing and receive the unique, personal help that they need. Rebuilding begins with secure, stable relationships. Our guests live with us and share weekly meals as well as household chores. We support them in meeting their goals, whether that’s getting a driver’s license, earning a GED, paying off debts, opening a checking account and saving money, or getting into residential detox. Slowly, we become community. It doesn’t happen overnight, but over the weeks and months that our guests live with us, we learn to trust and rely on one another.
The Christmas story recounts a migrant family looking for shelter in Bethlehem. The innkeeper, out of rooms but not out of compassion, makes a place for them in the stable, where the baby Jesus is born. And this story continues to unfold in our day and in our own lives. As Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day reflects, we are not “born two thousand years too late to give room to Christ. Nor will those who live at the end of the world have been born too late. Christ is always with us, always asking for room in our hearts.” We are immensely grateful to you—our friends, volunteers, and supporters—for enabling us to more abundantly open our hearts and our home to Christ who comes to us in the form of those who need our help.
May you be richly blessed this Christmas season, and may the peace of Christ reign in our hearts and heal our broken world.