By: Dave Manzo

His voice carried past more than 100 men sitting on benches. It carried through the haze of the smoke-filled room. It carried through the stifling July heat. It carried past young and old men waiting for a bed, a ride to detox or a visit to the nurse’s clinic.

His eyes locked on mine.

His voice was clear and strong when he screamed at me, “I’m going to f    kill you!”

I clearly understood that the threat, at least in his mind, was serious. It was frightening. It was the summer of 1976 and my first day volunteering at Pine Street Inn.

He was known to the staff as “Gene the Marine.” In those days, few truly understood PTSD, but the Inn’s staff recognized that mental health and substance abuse issues precipitated Gene’s outbursts. Rather than calling the police or physically removing him from the Inn, skilled staff redirected Gene, and he began to calm down. “Gene the Marine” was embraced by the Inn’s simple mission – treat each guest with dignity and respect.

Today’s Pine Street Inn is more than the emergency shelter I first experienced. Services now include job training, street outreach and approximately 1000 units of permanent housing, far more robust than I could ever have imagined when I first visited the Inn. In Boston, thanks to Pine Street, other non-profit organizations and strong business and government leaders, fewer than 4% of men and women who are experiencing homelessness are unsheltered. In Oakland and San Jose, the number of unsheltered homeless exceeds 65%.

My path to Pine Street Inn and another important organization, Haley House in the South End, was molded by Brother David Warnke, CSC, my senior year English teacher at Holy Cross High School in Waterbury, Connecticut. I wouldn’t say I was particularly close to Brother David. Immaturely, I once stood outside the teacher’s lounge shouting at him because he did not choose me for a part in a school play. But there was something that happened in his class that shaped my journey.

There’s a term called, “a random triggering event.” It is when something happens that takes you from concerned to committed.

On Monday’s, Brother David would tell us about his weekend which began on Fridays with an 80-mile bus trip from Waterbury to New York City, not to see a play or visit a museum or watch a game at Yankee Stadium, but to volunteer at the Catholic Worker.

Every Monday he was back in class. I was intrigued and wanted to hear more. My first impression was, this was crazy. Wait, he teaches all week and then he goes to The Bowery in NYC and feeds street people? Since my childhood mirrored the middle-class images of the 60’s TV family sitcom, think “Leave it to Beaver” or the “Wonder Years,” what Brother David was doing challenged me.

Soon Brother David was suggesting books about Dorothy Day, subscribing to The Catholic Worker Newspaper (still 1 cent per issue) and inspiring us by his actions to help those in need. He was attempting to live out the Gospel passage – Matthew 25 that we have all heard hundreds of times. We all know how it goes. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked – the corporal works of mercy.

For me, it was his active example that impressed me – deeds more than words.

When I moved to Boston for college, I had all good intentions, yet I was clueless about matters of homelessness and intractable poverty. I asked a Jesuit at Boston College, named Jim Halpin, if Boston had a Catholic Worker House. Jim told me about Haley House and then borrowed a car and took me to visit, beginning a 50+ year journey.

As a student in the Boston College PULSE Program, I volunteered at Haley House. Arriving at 6 AM to get the coffee and soup started, I met our guests and neighbors and heard their life stories. Kenny and Lefty and Mrs. Foley left an indelible mark on me. In those days it was called “lending an ear.” Today we would call this being “proximate.”

When I graduated from BC in 1977, I went to live as a full-time volunteer in a room above the soup kitchen for three years. Years later, my wife, Noreen, began to help our guests access permanent affordable housing. She served the Haley House mission for 22 years.

It’s all here – the through line – Brother David, my high school teacher plants a seed. Jim Halpin, a Jesuit at Boston College, brings me to Haley House. There I met Kathe and John McKenna, who founded Haley House by opening their home to men who were sleeping on their doorstep. Later, I met Father Frank Kelley, one of the Boston Urban Priests who founded Pine Street Inn and Paul Sullivan, the first executive director of the Inn, who saw those who entered the doors at Pine Street Inn as guests not clients.

My life was surrounded by those who were living their faith by their deeds, including “Clarkie.” Gentle and alone, Clarkie slept in the abandoned fireplace in the lobby of the old Pine Street Inn, steps from where Gene had first screamed at me.

I never asked Clarkie why he slept huddled in a fireplace with an old blanket. I suppose he felt safer having three walls and a roof, albeit a fireplace flue, over his head to protect his slight body.

Clarkie focused on helping others. After sleeping at Pine Street Inn, he walked 15 minutes to the Haley House Soup Kitchen where he volunteered to wash dishes and to serve breakfast.

Haley House and Pine Street Inn schooled me.

There the words of Mathew 25 were brought to life every day. (“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.”)

For at Haley House or Pine Street Inn, whether a guest was thoughtful like Clarkie or difficult like Gene the Marine, I witnessed faith, compassion and dignity.

Dave Manzo served as Haley House’s board chair from 1981-91 and is currently a board member. Since 1988, he has served on Pine Street Inn’s Board of Directors and for four years, beginning in 2002, served as its board chair. He is currently an adjunct faculty member at Boston College, teaching in the PULSE Program.