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In 1989, while living in Minneapolis, visionary Catholic Worker, Sr. Char Madigan, shared with us the plight of her residents struggling to survive in a blighted South Minneapolis neighborhood surrounding her highly respected St. Joseph’s Women’s Shelter.

Request

Sr. Char ‘planted a seed’ with us – “help transform her neighborhood’s block of deteriorating, abandoned houses to transitional homes for women and children transitioning from her shelter’s care.”

Vision Carrier

Sr. Char introduced us to Servant of God Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement in NYC during the Great Depression. Sr. Char’s shelter model was a Dorothy Day House, offering radical hospitality to create safe, affordable homes. Char invited us to “come and journey,” to transform darkness to light for her shelter residents by creating high impact outcomes future generations will harvest.

Solution

In 1989, the neighborhood was filled with vacant land and deteriorating housing. As co-founders of H.O.P.E., we acquired land no one else wanted and began rehabbing the block surrounding the shelter, house by house. When we relocated to Tampa in 1993, HOPE had five properties under our management. Today, HOPE is 253 rental apartments (70% affordable), HOPE’s offices and community center, small businesses, large community gardens, and outdoor community spaces – a community empowerment blessing to a thriving South Minneapolis neighborhood and a potential model for Tampa to replicate.

Our prayer request answered: In Q1 2022, a core team of community change makers answered the invitation to explore establishing Dorothy Day Tampa; servant hearts with a willingness and interest to “come and journey” saw the merits of changing the world, one person / family at a time, and agreed to form Dorothy Day Tampa –a Center of Radical Hospitality.