I've been involved with St. Francis House, a large day shelter in downtown Boston, for a good long time. As a volunteer, I'm there 2 or 3 days a week, every Monday and Thursday, and every other Friday. My main job is handing out hygiene supplies, socks, and handwarmers to our guests. One thing I like about this job is that - unlike when I'm serving breakfast or lunch, which I also do - there's often time to chat with folks and hear their stories (or whatever part of their stories they're willing to share with a complete stranger).
I'm not a case manager. I'm not a social worker. I'm not a clinician. I'm not a therapist. I'm not a housing expert. I'm not a job counsellor. I can't actually help-help anyone. But what the guests get from me is sympathetic ear. And, on occasion, a bit of advice.
When I'm speaking with a woman, I always make sure that they know about the Women's Lunch Place, a day shelter for women. St. Francis House assists both men and women, but in the day to day, in terms of who's hanging out there, our population skews male. And it can be a rough crew, especially if a woman is at all vulnerable. We do have a dedicated place for women set aside at SFH, and it's great. But I try to make sure that our female guests also know about the Women's Lunch Place on Newbury Street.
And when I'm talking with a kid, I always make sure to mention Bridge Over Troubled Waters, an organization focused on services for young people (up to 24 years old) who are homeless, runaways, or otherwise at risk. To me, there is NOTHING more heartbreaking than seeing some kid in their late teens/early twenties come through our doors.
As I mentioned, our guests can be a pretty rough crew, and while St. Francis House does offer plenty of support for troubled young folks, it may not be the best option for them to be hanging around with an older crowd composed of a goodly proportion of ex-cons, addicts, mentally ill, street people and others. These old hands, while they may be able to help newbies navigate "the system" - and are often genuinely supportive and generous to the young ones - may not always be the best people for the young ones to get involved with.
And now there's another organization I can mention to the "kids" who drop by the SFH Resource Center to ask for a toothbrush or nail clippers. There's Breaktime:
Breaktime’s mission is to break the cycle of homelessness by equipping young adults with the job and financial security they need to establish housing security. By providing employment, wraparound services, and financial support, Breaktime works to ensure that every young person has the tools they need to achieve job, financial, and long-term housing security.
Co-founded by Harvard classmates Connor Schoen and Tony Shu, and now run by Schoen, Breaktime - taking advantage of the decline in the post-pandemimc office-space market - recently bought a building in downtown Boston - 63 Franklin Street - to house its growing organization. (Shu remains on the board of Breaktime, but he's off serial-entrepreneuring, with a company called Parker that facilitates investments in trailer parks. I can't tell if Parker is trying to create more affordable housing or exploit the mobile housing market for a quick buck or both.)
Schoen, who's 26 years old, has been at it a while. In high school, he collected clothing for Cradles to Crayons, which provides clothing and other items to families in need. At Harvard, starting in his freshman year, he volunteered at a Cambridge-based shelter for young adults. There he met Shu and the two came up with the idea for Breaktime, wich they launched in 2018. (Schoen was 19 at the time, Shu 18.)
Over the years, Breaktime evolved. The original idea - a cafe for young (homeless) adults - had the kibosh put on it by the pandemic. The idea then became a job-training platform that provided job-readiness and a network for finding work. Breaktime now offers participants coaching, mentoring, and some small financial assistance.
As Breaktime evolved, Schoen stuck with it, extending his undergraduate stay to lend some of his prodigious energy to Breaktime. And Breaktime started getting results.
...in 2022, 126 associates went through the program, and 79 percent of graduates had found stable housing. (Source: Boston Globe)
Breaktime started attracting interest - and money - including financial support from the CEO of Moderna.
With his commitment to the non-profit world, Schoen wasn't your typical young Harvard grad, who's in law school, med school, investing banking for two years before B-school, trying to break into screenwriting, or trying to figure out how to parlay their Harvard brilliance and connections into becoming the next bro billionaire.
“I wasn’t fitting into the vision of what other people expect, graduating from Harvard,” Schoen said. “It’s not the normal path."
...At first, Schoen recalls, it was hard to be taken seriously, as a new college graduate asking well-heeled donors for money.And prove it he has done.
“A lot of people thought, ‘It’s great he has the energy and the creativity, but he’s not going to stick with it,’” Schoen said. “I had to prove it.”
Michael Nichols, who runs the Downtown Boston Alliance, wasn’t that familiar with Breaktime when Schoen began looking around about a year ago. “But I think Connor has proven to be a force of nature in the work that he’s doing ... and clearly was able to identify supporters of his vision,” Nichols said.
Breaktime's new building - which was purchased for $6.3M in a blessedly (for them, at least) soft commercial real estate market - is in a central location in downtown Boston. They'll be retrofitting the building for their needs, and included in their plans is space for a Healthcare for the Homeless outpost. Among other things, Healthcare for the Homeless runs the medical clinic at St. Francis House.
Is everything in life just a few degrees of separation from everything else?
Case in point: Breakpoint's new home is just down the street from 45 Franklin, which was for years the HQ for Christmas in the City, another non-profit focused on the needs of those experiencing poverty and homelessness. Christmas in the City was founded by the late (great) Jake Kennedy, and 45 Franklin housed his PT clinic. I got roped into volunteering for Christmas in the City when I was a PT patient of Jake's, and spent a ton of time at "45" - our shorthand name for it - over the years. I can't help but think that Jake would have been thrilled by having Breaktime as a neighbor.
And I'm pretty sure he would have loved Connor Schoen.
I know that, without having met him, I sure do.
And now I have a new place to mention to the young kids who stop by the SFH Resource Center.
“Being a social entrepreneur has been a natural fit for me,” Schoen said. “It’s certainly not the easiest job. It can be taxing emotionally, physically. It’s a lot of stress. It’s a lot of pressure. But I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else."
Good for you, Connor Schoen. Good for you.
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