Annals of the Great Recession, The Pine Street Inn, Boston

Debbie and I had an interesting experience yesterday. Our church is one of the supporters of the Pine Street Inn in Boston, a private philanthropy that serves about 1000 homeless people in Boston daily through its various programs and facilities. The main building is quite imposing; it is the former headquarters of the Boston Fire Department and was built in 1892 modeled on an Italian Renaissance palace in Siena.

Once each month, our church prepares the evening meal. It is cooked in the church kitchen by a team of volunteers. Debbie and I picked up the meal, as well as another volunteer Jim, in our leafy suburb and drove into Boston. (I have never done this before but one of the church ladies broke her wrist and I was pressed into service at the last minute.)

The Pine Street Inn has two sections, one for men and one for women. The “guests” arrive in the evening for dinner, then go upstairs for showers, and then spend the night. In the morning they leave, mostly to return in the evening. We served the women dinner yesterday. I might add that the facility was immaculately clean.

I had been expecting to encounter people who were somehow impaired, either physically or mentally, and some were. But mostly I encountered people whom the English used to quaintly call “distressed gentlefolk,” that is to say, people superficially like us. Some women looked as if they had come directly from the affluent suburbs. They were clean, properly dressed, polite and well-spoken. When we left, we received many “thank you’s.”

Troubling. The Great Recession is reducing some people not unlike us to indigence. This is an offense to the natural order.