At Home in Joseph's House

A Place That Is Home

Around Joseph's House, they call Howard Janifer's room "The Icehouse." The room is as frigid on this late-January afternoon in Washington, D.C., as the outdoors. Howard explains that he's used to the cold from his time on the streets. When asked how many years he lived there, he says, "A whole lotta winters--over 17."

But the room exudes the warmth of a place that is home. A small altar at the foot of the bed holds a statue of Jesus, several rosaries, and a well-worn Bible, unusual for the thin, steel spike taped inside. Around the room are homemade candles, a walking stick Howard found on the beach, and his certificate of baptism, dated October 13, 1991.

He picks up a picture of his daughters from among the many he has stuck to a mirror. "If it weren't for this place," he says, referring to Joseph's House, "I wouldn't have seen my kids." Until last June, it had been 21 years since Howard had seen them. He explains that he never had a home to invite them to before.

He opens his Bible and begins to tell the story of the spike taped there. Some years ago Howard fell off a roof and shattered his foot while trying to get through a skylight for a place to sleep. He spent more than three hours in an ambulance while four hospitals refused him care because he lacked health insurance. A doctor at D.C. General Hospital who saw him took a paper bag, filled it with pencils, shook it up and said, "That's what your foot looks like." The spike was drilled into his ankle for six months of traction.

A few years later Howard was back in the hospital, this time in a coma. While there, he tested positive for HIV (the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS). He was eventually released to an AIDS hospice. He noticed a clipboard with a long list of names on it and asked one of the hospice staff what it was. She told him it was a list of all the people who had died there.

"I asked God, 'Please help me, I don't want to die. I'm too scared to die. Please just let me live long enough to see my children.'" God heard Howard's plea.

A Call and a Dream

For five years David Hilfiker worked as a physician at Christ House, a medical facility for homeless men in Washington, D.C. (see "Rest for the Weary," Sojourners, January 1988). During that time, he observed a disturbing rise in HIV infection among his patients.

When David was asked to consider moving into a house with HIV-positive homeless men, he wasn't sure he was up to the challenge. But he wanted to seriously discern if God was placing a call on his life to help create a new home which, like Christ House, would be a ministry of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour.

His wife, Marja, felt clearer from the beginning. "I have always felt that life is much richer if we can share it with other people," she says. "It's not easy; but I don't think life was meant to be easy. I don't think families are meant to be as isolated as they are. People are meant to take care of each other."

David smiles as he says, "We took it to the kids. I hoped they wouldn't want to move here, so it would be clear we weren't called. But they were really quite excited."

The practical details began to come together. Money came in from the D.C. Office of AIDS Activities, several foundations, and a wide array of friends, churches, and religious communities. A house was found--one previously owned by two interior decorators. "The bedroom on the second floor reminded me of a bowling alley," David says of the massive room. Friends came to do renovation work.

On June 4, 1990, David and Marja; their three children Laurel, Karin, and Kai; Howard; and two others moved into Joseph's House. The name of the house was chosen to reflect the story recorded at the end of Genesis, in which Joseph--rejected and despised by his brothers--was chosen by God to be a prophet to the powerful through his gift of interpreting dreams; it was Joseph who saved the people from the ravages of famine.

"We envision Joseph's House as a place where the ostracized and hated of society are protected," wrote David of the founding of Joseph's House, "where their dreams and visions are nourished. As the years of American domination and plenty come to an end, an American famine is coming: The culture now needs the visions of those whom it has marginalized."

The Beginning of a Great Fear

"Like everyone else, I was devastated. I thought I was going to die next week, or next month. I thought about how I would get the money together for my funeral, for clothes to wear." Ron Holmes ("like in Sherlock," he says, managing a smile) speaks slowly and with great effort about his response on hearing in August 1988 that he had contracted the AIDS virus.

But the devastation forced Ron to reassess. The diagnosis of AIDS--heard as a death sentence--was the source of new life. Ron says it made him "do some serious thinking about what I was doing on the street."

Ron was sent to Christ House, where he determined to conquer his drug addiction. "I felt like I was on top of things for once in a long, long time. I availed myself to God, to the Holy Spirit."

The years since his diagnosis have been marked by a struggle between the force of his addiction and the power of forgiveness and grace. Ron was among those who first moved into Joseph's House in June 1990. He confesses, "In the beginning, I took advantage of their trust. I went out there and used [drugs] and got caught." After three infractions of drug use, Ron was asked to leave the house for 30 days.

"Life got very hard for me," he says. He was put back in the hospital. "I went to sleep on a Friday and woke up a week later. I almost didn't make it." It was, says Ron, "the beginning of a great fear."

He says of being put out of the house, "Maybe that's what I needed--something to really wake me up." He talks of friends and staff from Joseph's House and Christ House who came to him in the hospital, who stood by him, praying, encouraging, and breaking bread with him.

The pace of Ron's speech slows as he talks about his disease. "I don't have the strength I had last year. I feel my energy expiring. I think I look like I have the virus now." He speaks truth--his face looks thin and hollow, his eyes tired. He receives a blood transfusion every seven to 10 days. He is devoting his flagging energy to decorating the house, putting snapshots in frames to adorn the halls and finding a poster for the foyer.

Ron says that his family doesn't know that he has the virus, but he plans to tell them soon. "Sometimes I just long to be in my mother's arms, or be with my father," he says sadly. "But I threw that away the first time I picked up a drink, when I started shooting dope. One of the things I tell people, 'It's not worth it.' "

Ron's days are unpredictable. "I've been in the situation where I woke up in the morning fine, next day I was in the hospital. All my friends started dying on me. Then you're afraid to make friendships. Everything hurts.

"But sometimes you feel like the world is going great," Ron says, smiling. "You forget you have the virus. You wear new clothes; people tell you you're looking good."

His tone grows somber again. "Then you reach the top of the mountain--the bad top, where the people that were on top are gone. It's a steady rising to be at the top of the mountain--then you're the oldest one who's got it. Everybody below you is going through what you did. And people are still falling off the top of the mountain.

"Every day I'm scared," says Ron. "But being scared is a good thing--it makes you pay attention."

Providing Hope

Lois Smith moved into Joseph's House as director of nursing two months after the others. "One of the definitions of nursing," she says, "is to do for people what they would do for themselves if they were able, until they are able." Such care is often thought of in physical terms, but she adds, "One of the things we try to do is hope for people until they are able to do that for themselves. That's what this place is about--to provide that until it catches on with a person, and they can say, 'I'm worth caring about.' Then they care not only for themselves, but for one another."

She continues, "It's amazing that it works--people from such different backgrounds, including men who had no family or home situation until recently. I attribute it to the spiritual base. We don't require that anyone adhere to a creed. But twice a week we meet, to hassle over such things as who's taking out the garbage. We always end in prayer, in a circle with our arms around each other."

Sister Mary Daniel Turner, S.S.N.D., Joseph's House's administrator, joined the house because she wanted to work in a place "committed to creating an environment where goodness could be tasted and grace could flourish." The goodness and grace are evident, but they don't always come easily.

Anger is a common emotion of those who suffer the unpredictability and loss of control brought on by the AIDS virus. The level of honesty is on one hand "a great grace," says Sister Mary Daniel, but participating in Joseph's House requires an abundance of confession and forgiveness, which many say is at the heart of its life. "Sometimes," says Clint Ibele, the house's development coordinator, "the best we can do is live through the present, giving each other the patience and time needed to hurt, heal, and then go on."

From the beginning the hope was to avoid becoming an institution, and to live like a family, with as few rules as possible, determined by all who live in the house. An optional HIV support group meets once a week. Those who are dealing with substance abuse are required to attend three Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous meetings a week.

Asking someone to leave the house because of substance abuse is one of the most difficult tasks, according to the staff. The temptation is always to leave the family intact, to be forgiving one more time. But they also know that drug abuse on the premises affects the stability and safety of the house for others.

"The thing that has made the most difference," says David of Joseph's House, "is that this is a permanent place for the men. That knowledge--that this is their home, and if they are not violent and stay clean of drugs--makes the essential difference in allowing us to be community."

Time after time, as new residents have joined the house, David has seen miraculous changes. Some are physical: Men who could barely walk up the front stairs when they arrived--some of whom in fact believed themselves to be dying--have thrived. Hardened exteriors from years on the streets have softened in the safety of the house.

"There is a level of faith and caring that is very deep," says Lois. "I came thinking I was going to give a lot; a lot of nurturing comes back." She has been inspired by the faith of the men. "Their spirituality often outruns us," she says. "It is a matter of life and death for them."

"I live pretty much at the limits of my strength most of the time," says Marja. "I'm being stretched a lot by the community. And it's good; it continues to remind me of my utter dependence on God. When the need is greatest, the help is nearest. I feel like my life is maybe the hardest it's ever been--but also the most satisfying."

David sees Joseph's House as a sign of hope in a time when such signs seem rare. "God is reconciling the world, and we're participants in that. What's happening in this place is a reminder, a sign that it's happening."

A Covenant With God

Today Howard works twice a week at the hospice where he was sent to die two years ago. He gives baths, changes diapers, and comforts the dying. People have asked him how he can keep doing the work. "The same way Jesus laid there with nails in his hands," he says. "If he could do that for me, why couldn't I do this for another man?"

Howard tells the biblical story of the 10 lepers Jesus healed, and how only one came back to thank him. "I'm that 10th leper," says Howard. "I made a covenant with God. This is God's body--I'm just using it. I killed mine with drugs and alcohol. Now I'm using his body to do his work.

"It's not right," Howard says of the way the most vulnerable often die. He hopes he can be brave when his time comes. "I'm not going down without a fight. There's got to be a cure--maybe even for me, if I keep on praying and keep my head high."

Howard smiles as he talks about his ultimate future. "Me and all my friends who died are gonna meet again as soon as we get through the Pearly Gate. We're gonna meet on the first cloud on the left. We're gonna find our sisters and brothers and go out on the town for the night. If you come that way, look for that cloud."

The Look of God's Child

Robert Jones moved into Joseph's House last December 2. An infection that had gone untreated while he was in prison had spread to his bones. According to Dixcy Bosley-Smith, who came as a nurse to Joseph's House the same day Robert moved in, "That Christmas was his first holiday home in a long time. He kept bearing the pain" so that he could stay at the house.

On January 6 Robert went into the hospital. Though he was relatively new to Joseph's House, every one of the residents went to visit him while he was there, each telling the nurses on duty, "I'm Robert's brother."

On Tuesday evening, February 4, Robert began struggling for breath. Dixcy came and stayed by his side. Robert began singing, quietly and with great effort, "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world; red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight...." And then he said, "I want to go home."

Dixcy held him through the night. They sang hymns together and talked about forgiveness until morning light. Robert struggled to hang on while arrangements were made for an ambulance. He had a seizure, and Dixcy thought he was gone, but he came back. "Help me. Take me home," he said.

At 2:30 in the afternoon, an ambulance was finally available. Robert's breathing was labored. As they rode through Washington, Dixcy told him where they were, how close they were getting to home. As he was being carried up the front stairs of Joseph's House, Robert lifted his head slightly, with some help from the other men. "When he looked up, it was like he was risen," says Dixcy. "It was the most amazing sight."

"I survived," were Robert's words as they settled him into his bed. Howard was the first to greet him, speaking gently and giving Robert one of his rosaries. Leroy came in and told Robert he needed a shave, and Robert smiled. Pee Wee offered to spend the night by his bed.

At 3:45, in the middle of the night, Robert Jones went to his final home. Lois was with him. When she removed the oxygen mask he was wearing, she saw a smile develop as he moved from this world into the next.

Robert had wrestled long and hard with guilt about his incarceration and his AIDS, had felt unworthy of God's love. But in the end, wrote Leroy in a tribute to Robert that was read at his memorial service, "He had the look of one of God's children that has been forgiven and accepted into his kingdom." Leroy ended his tribute with, "See you soon, Robert."

Robert's passing was difficult for the house. Death paid a visit, and each of the men had to face the fact that he was seeing his own future. It was frightening, but also comforting. If it wasn't clear before, it was clear then that no one at Joseph's House would die alone. Ron expressed his gratitude for that knowledge at a community sharing time the day after Robert's death.

'Precious Lord, Take My Hand'

Just 10 days later, Ron fell off the top of the mountain. It was a hard blow. A house that had set out to be a community and not just a hospice realized most profoundly that it had to be that, too.

"I think it's an open question," says David, "as to whether we as a house can deal with death after death after death. I believe we can--but I don't think we know yet. Our faith says that death is not the ultimate evil; the kind of life we have here is greater than the deaths that come." He adds, "Part of coming here was accepting that we would need grace on a regular basis or we weren't going to make it."

People grieved Ron's death in different ways. Howard set up his altar in the living room by the fireplace. Pee Wee stayed out all night playing pool after he heard the news, and Dixcy joined him.

It was a time for recalling memories of Ron. Lois remembered the joint birthday party he and Marja celebrated at the house last May when Ron turned 40. Ron told Lois it was the first birthday party he had ever had--and that he hadn't expected to live to 40.

Dixcy recalled planting a dogwood tree with him in the yard last spring, one that Ron had selected and asked to have named after him. Just days before he died, a warm spell in Washington prompted early buds, and Ron said he hoped to live to see the tree in full bloom.

David smiled recalling a time when Ron was not feeling well and asked him to screen his visitors. He remembered how many people came to the house and said of Ron, "I'm his best friend--he'll want to see me." It was said that Ron made everyone feel important.

It was only very recently that Ron had found reconciliation with his family. Leroy recalled the emotion with which he had said, "I love them so much, I hate to see the pain in their faces when they see me suffer."

His funeral brought together a wide array of people--his mother and father, his children, friends from professionals to homeless people, in all colors, of all ages--all 150 drawn together to pay tribute to a formerly homeless man who died of AIDS. He had shown them about grace, about the endless abundance of God's forgiveness every time we slip and try again. These words were said in his eulogy: "We were drawn by a spiritual force within him that was bringing him home, and we too along with him."

Displayed by his casket was the poster he had chosen just days before for the foyer of Joseph's House. It is a depiction of the Prodigal Son, kneeling before his father and receiving his forgiveness. Leroy stood by it as he sang Ron's favorite hymn:

Precious Lord, take my hand.
Lead me on, let me stand.
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn;
Through the storm, through the night,
Lead me on to the light,
Take my hand, precious Lord,
Lead me home.

Sidebar: 'I Didn't Want to Live'

"There's a note on this," explained Leroy to everyone in the kitchen as he put a bottle of soda in the refrigerator, "saying not to drink it." A grin crept over John "Pee Wee" Williamson's face. "I learned how to read in night school," he said. "So I don't read so good during the day." Leroy and Pee Wee bantered for a while about whether Pee Wee was going to sneak a drink during the day and blame it on his education. "That's Pee Wee," Mary Williams commented. "Always full of fun."

Pee Wee Williamson contracted the AIDS virus from helping a friend clean his drug needles. "When the doctor told me," Pee Wee says, "I didn't want to live anymore. I left the house with the clothes on my back and started sleeping in apartment halls, anywhere so I wouldn't have any contact with my family.

"People got tired of me in the halls," he continues. So Pee Wee asked a friend, a car mechanic, if he could sleep in his van, curled up on his tools. He grew weaker and weaker, his 260-pound frame thinner and thinner.

"My family was afraid of me when they found out I had the disease," he says. "My mother would bring me food and stand three feet away. 'You stay in that van and talk to me,' she would say, 'or I'm leaving.' It really hurt me. I didn't want to live."

Pee Wee eventually ended up in the hospital with double pneumonia, weighing 89 pounds. He explains, "The doctor told me, 'Son, you're lucky. You're supposed to be dead.' And I said, 'You can see that I'm not.' "

Soon afterward, Pee Wee arrived at Joseph's House. He explains that the adjustment was difficult at first: "I came from the streets. If you don't straighten things out, they consider you weak. I got into arguments. But I apologized. I have a rough exterior, but on the inside my heart is as good as gold."

Pee Wee says, "If it weren't for Joseph's House, I'd be dead." The people at the house, he explains, "made me feel wanted, made me feel like a person. They knew I had the disease and weren't afraid of it.

"Joseph's House gives you your self-esteem back. They don't carry you; they make you stand on your own two feet. They treat you like a man."

Dishing Out Love

It is universally agreed at Joseph's House that things wouldn't run nearly so smoothly without Mary Williams. Her job title is "personal aide," which means dishing out love in forms ranging from leg rubs or a game of cards to clean laundry and eggs over easy. "I hate cooking," says Mary, as she graciously serves up made-to-order breakfasts for each person who appears in the kitchen at any hour of the morning, "and I don't like to clean. But I couldn't ask for a better place to work. If I have to scrub floors, I will--as long as they want me and need me."

Last May, after her daughter Rolveatta had been missing for a year, Mary found her in a local hospital. The diagnosis was AIDS. Mary quit her former job and brought Rolveatta home to care for her. "When people talk about AIDS, they're scared; they treat them like they're nothing. I didn't want that to happen to her," says Mary.

With virtually no resources, Mary cared for Rolveatta and Rolveatta's 11-year-old daughter, Kimberly. "I wasn't eating," she says. "I couldn't eat and have food for them, too." Lois Smith recognized how desperate her situation was and invited Mary to work at Joseph's House.

Rolveatta died last November 20, on what would have been her 30th birthday. "If I hadn't had the experience of Rolveatta, it would have been hard for me to understand these guys," Mary says of the now 11 men in the house. "The virus is different. They need understanding. They need love. They need to be touched; people are afraid to touch them--they look at them as 'hands off.' " She adds, "And nobody needs to die alone."

Mary's face brightens as she talks about her granddaughter. "When we talk of her mother together, we cry," Mary says. "But everybody here has adopted her. She has uncles here, grandfathers here. They take her to the movies, tutor her." Mary explains that children have disappeared from most of the men's lives, and Kimberly is as much a gift to them as they are to her.

Her voice betrays emotion as she recalls the day she saw Kimberly in Howard's room, with Bibles open on their laps, and overheard her granddaughter ask him if her mother went to heaven. "My grandmother said she did," Mary recalls Kimberly saying, "but maybe she was only trying to make me feel better."

Mary believes that Joseph's House works because of the continuing commitment of those who had the vision for it. She says of the men upon whom she showers love at Joseph's House, "My life would not be right without them. I could not pick up and leave this place--even for more money, though it would be tempting. Once you're here," she laughs again, affectionately, "you can't leave these fools. It's like missing some of your life."

More important than any of the cooking and cleaning that Mary offers is the spirit she brings to the house: "I tell the guys this is your chance to do anything you didn't do before. Don't feel sorry for yourself. Most of all, don't be ashamed that you have AIDS."

A Lot of Life

Karin Hilfiker is a senior in high school. "I like living in community," she says. "You get to know people here--and actually share your life with people.

"I'm glad that I can see another side of life," she adds. "The people here have a lot of life, which is kind of ironic. They give me a different perspective on things. They're honest about their pain in a way other people won't be. They're able to share their suffering, even with me, and I grow up through it."

Smiles come readily to Karin's face. Her joy is a gift which gets received with affection and playful teasing by her multitude of brothers.

"I think the difference will show more later," she says of the way she has been raised. "I have no idea how I'll live, but I know I'll be helping people somehow." She is interested in education, carrying a hope that if she could work with young children, she could help them avoid some of the wounds that have affected her brothers at Joseph's House.

Karin describes the New Year's Eve memorial service at the house when each person lit a candle for someone they wanted to be remembered, and the testimonies she has heard. "Seeing people who say 'I was lost before I found Jesus Christ'--that's religion to me. They seem to have a belief that's holding their life together."

"People ask me, 'Isn't it depressing living with these people?'" She pauses a moment and then reflects, "Here it's like the bad part is over. It's not death anymore--it's rejuvenation."

Another Chance at Life

Two years ago doctors told Leroy's family that his "liver and kidneys were gone," and that if he came out of the coma he was in, he would be in a vegetative state. They gave his family the choice of whether or not to keep him alive.

"The head doctor, which is God," says Leroy (not his real name), "saw fit to override their decision and give me another chance at life." The doctors said his recovery was a miracle--one of many "resurrection stories" that reside within the walls of Joseph's House.

Leroy was released to Christ House. "There I decided to turn the will of my life over to God," he says, "knowing that I'm not perfect and there would be times I'd ask him to forgive me on a daily basis for acts I might do in the course of a day."

Until he met Ron, Leroy had a difficult time accepting that he had been diagnosed as HIV-positive while he was in the hospital. "We began to talk about living," he says. "He opened my mind and allowed me to think and make a choice in which I feel very strong now. I've learned to accept death without fear." He adds, "My heart began to understand what compassion and understanding and accepting really mean."

Soon after, Leroy, who is in great demand for his gospel singing, joined the Joseph's House family. "It's a home of understanding, love, care, and companionship," he says. "They never let you forget that this is your home, and you definitely are an important part of the community.

"The love that is expressed here can only be God's love," he continues. "It is only by giving back what you have received to someone else that God blesses and keeps us in his everlasting arms. We are all learning to be as one in this house--the sick helping the sick, the oppressor helping the oppressed, feeling free to express our thoughts without having to hold back feelings or determine which to express.

"I don't believe there's another house like this one, although with many more houses like this there would be better communities and more love expressed than denial and hatred."

Leroy hopes that telling his story "might help somebody to understand what life is really about. It's not how long you live, but how much you please God while you live--doing his will, not ours.

"God has a free gift for us. Let's stop fighting and start sacrificing, to live in harmony with each other and our Lord. We're all human and born to love each other. No matter what your race, color, or creed is, this is true: God-given love for one another."

The 'Calcutta Solution'

David Hilfiker predicts that in two to three years, the AIDS epidemic will overwhelm the health care system. A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control concluded that 14 percent of the homeless people in Washington, D.C., are HIV-positive.

It used to be that if he advocated persistently enough, David could always get care for his patients, even the most indigent. But with the privatization of medical care and the entrepreneurial spirit that dominates the system, hospitals can no longer afford to give care to the poor.

He compares what's happening here to the desperation he knows of in India, where the poor have been consigned to wander the streets until they die. He says our own nation has now adopted what he calls the "Calcutta solution": "In many areas of social well-being--education, food, health care--we are saying we can't afford to give these basic necessities to people. We are increasingly willing to say the solutions are beyond us--they are too big. We are increasingly willing to ghettoize people into certain areas geographically and say, 'I'm sorry, but we really can't take care of your problem.' From a spiritual point of view, that destroys a nation."

The decade-old AIDS epidemic--still largely perceived as a problem of "marginal" populations such as the gay community and intravenous drug users--has never received sufficient public-policy attention or dollars for research toward treatment and a cure. And in our society, persons diagnosed with AIDS are the premier "untouchables."

"Only as we are able to reconcile ourselves to the marginalized can we save the culture," says David. "The issue with middle-class Americans is our unwillingness--and the impropriety--of exposing our weakness and vulnerability. We are supposed to be independent, to take care of ourselves.

"Healing means beginning to see our own darkness. One thing that is so therapeutic here for me is to see my own weakness and vulnerability so honored and accepted. The men all know what it's like not to be doing well. AIDS is a wake-up call; you have no future unless you do something now. That offers an enormous opportunity for conversion.

"Chances are some of these men would be dead now if it weren't for the disease. It destroys the fantasy of our independence, which is a problem for all of us. When we get rid of the fantasy, it allows for community."

Joyce Hollyday was associate editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.