Sisters of the Road Cafe attributes their 26-year success to listening with the whole heart to the needs of their customers, the homeless of Portland, Oregon.
"I need you. You are the social service center in the neighborhood. You can point me to where the things I need are. I know that about you. But don't you ever forget that you need me, too!"
So screamed the homeless woman who had burst into the staff meeting of the social service agency where Genny Nelson worked in 1979. The words struck home with Genny, reinforcing a message she had been hearing from the homeless for several years: "Listen to me. You need me."
Genny Nelson and her colleague Sandy Gooch founded Sisters of the Road Cafe in Portland, Oregon, in 1979, in response to hours and hours of conversation with homeless people, listening to them articulate what they needed in order to get back on their feet. They asked for an alternative to the missions and soup lines, a place where they could dine with dignity, a place where they could work for their meals. They asked for a safe space, for community, and for help in job training. "We don't want to be stuck in a lifetime of charity," they said.
Sisters of the Road became all that they requested and more. Today, Sisters serves hot meals every day between 10 and 2:45. Customers can work for a meal or pay for a meal. They can work their way up to staff positions at Sisters. They can join the workforce development program and receive job training and help in job placement.
The sense of community at Sisters is palpable. "This place is different," notes a customer. "You can feel it the minute you walk in the door." Customers and volunteers alike note the sense of respect that pervades the atmosphere of Sisters of the Road. Not an easy atmosphere to maintain in the midst of the poverty and violence of life on the street, Sisters of the Road staff rely on their monthly nonviolence training and their daily practice of meeting violence with compassion to create and sustain the sense of community and mutuality at the cafe.
"Nonviolence is the practice of living from the heart honestly," explains Genny Nelson. "It asks of us the courage to address hurtful behavior while not humiliating that man, woman, or child's personhood." Genny attributes the atmosphere at Sisters to the consistency with which nonviolence has been practiced at Sisters over the twenty-six years of its existence.
At Sisters of the Road, staff, customers, and volunteers continue to work together to solve the problems of homelessness. The partnership between the homeless and the housed that Sisters conceived of initially continues in Sisters' day-to-day operations. "Listen to me! You need me!" The message Genny received from the homeless woman who burst through the door has continued to echo in Genny's consciousness and has provided guidance throughout the years of Sisters' existence.
