About Us
The Center for the Working Poor is an inter-faith intentional community inspired by the Catholic Worker movement and New Monasticism, which is committed to strategic non-violent social change. These are our core principles and programs:
- Strategic Nonviolence
- Voluntary Simplicity and Intentional Community
- Hospitality and Mutual Aid Mental Health Community
- The Burning Bush Newsletter and website
- Community Building
- Spirituality and Faith in Action
Some of our community members live and work as full-time volunteers at the Center, and other community members work in careers outside the Center. We all share a commitment to live in community, share a few meals a week, and a common vision of non-violent social change to benefit the most oppressed in our society. Volunteer members run the Center for the Working Poor, which is a non-profit that provides services for poor, and organizes protest and social movement activity. Our specialty is helping to organize social movements, and facilitating the use of strategic nonviolence throughout the world. We are a spiritual community which observes Christian contemplative practices; however, this is not a requirement for participation or membership at the Center. We have people of many faiths and beliefs in our community.
Mutual Aid Mental Health
We provide mutual aid mental health community and services to people in need and people in social justice movements.
Articles About Us
By Paul Engler It’s hard to overstate the importance of “monastic retreats” and “meditation retreats” in my life. Not only have they been the source of some of the greatest …
By Garrett Allen At the Center for the Working Poor some things are constant year to year. We have a steady stream of visitors from around the country and world …
I’m happy to report that our community has stabilized at the Center for the Working Poor house. We haven’t had one person leave in the past year! A welcome contrast …
The Center for the Working Poor was founded in 2006, but we didn’t move into our large Victorian house until 2007. Therefore, we have been in the house for 14 …
The life of the house has changed dramatically this year due to Coronavirus. We normally have a steady stream of people coming in and out of the house who we …
Monasticism, Indigenous Cultures, Burning Man, and/or Kingdom of God?: My trip to Taize.
After being invited to Barcelona, Spain this fall for a chaotic tour of book talks, TV appearances, and radio interviews, I needed a place to recover from all the activity. …
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