By Katie Patrick
My daughters and I were four dozen deep in our cookie-making tradition when my work phone rang on Christmas Eve. I often don’t answer outside of working hours, but something told me that I needed to answer that call.
When I did, a woman was on the other line crying. I asked her what happened and if there was anything I could do to help. She explained to me that she was calling on behalf of her daughter, who was living with an ex-boyfriend and his family. The environment was toxic, abusive, and escalating—and she had nowhere to go.
Her parents lived in Nevada—that is where the mom was calling from. The mom was hoping to send money to her daughter so that she could return home, but in the meantime needed to find a shelter or somewhere safe for her to go. Previously the daughter had refused to live under her parents’ roof because of the rules they imposed. With a little more information, I gathered that the daughter was a former (if not current) drug user, and the parents forbade drug use in the home.
While there may have been other reasons the daughter chose to live in a city a thousand miles away, the reality of her being so far from her family—her natural safety net—caused deep physical and emotional distress. In other words, due to distance and previously severed relationships, the crisis displaced the family as the primary responder. In its place, multiple agencies—including Catholic Social Services (CSS), and possibly law enforcement—would become involved.
As Ismael Hernandez argues in “Rethinking Charity: Restoring Dignity to Poverty Relief,” when systems replace personal relationships, they often weaken the very bonds people need most—family and community. And in that moment, what this young woman needed wasn’t a system. She needed her family.
At CSS, we witness the broken and severed relationships that many of our clients carry. Patterns of dependency, irresponsibility, entitlement, and disordered self-interest—often accompanied over time by coping mechanisms like addiction—lead to isolation, vulnerability, and a loss of identity.
On average, our Family Support Services team across the diocese provides emergency financial assistance for rent, utilities, car repairs and other urgent expenses to 15–20 households each week. We always ask about their support networks and the most common response is— “It’s just me,” or “It’s just me and the kids,” or “No family, I’m alone.”
This is especially true for the elderly living on fixed incomes and those experiencing illness. We occasionally receive calls from the hospital when a patient is about to be discharged and they need either transportation assistance or ongoing food assistance because they were unable to identify anyone who could help. If possible, we provide transportation and food pantry deliveries.
Clients in our St. Gianna Program, including the children, are in desperate need of restoration. Due to the abuse—its severity and length of time—their journey is difficult. In the conversations that I have had with our homeless clients, they often share stories and memories of their families—relationships they have lost touch with.
The outlier at CSS is our refugee and immigrant clients. Many come from long-established communities of support—multigenerational households and subsistence agricultural systems—where basic needs like food, clothing, and shelter are shared among neighbors and sustained through accountability and personal responsibility. Our role in this case is to help them identify and adjust to new communities of support.
For example, our team continues to look after and visit a recently widowed mom from Sudan who is managing five children, including one with a physical and mental disability. Ultimately, leaving their families and communities was never desired, but civil conflict, displacement, and lack of economic activity and mobility demanded it. Nonetheless, they persevere, knowing that safety and opportunity offer the greatest hope to their family.
In each instance, with guidance, love and support, extended by the team at CSS, our clients can begin to recognize, prioritize and restore their dignity, while pursuing healthy relationships with those around them—most importantly, with their family—the first, most enduring, and most effective source of support we have.
