Raphael House is a dedicated non-profit helping at-risk children and their families achieve stable housing and financial independence, while strengthening family bonds and personal dignity in San Francisco,CA. For the past 10 years the Raphael House Thrift Store,which is located next to our main building, has become an essential resource for our shelter residents who often arrive with only the clothes they are wearing.
All of our merchandise, sold both online and on site in the store, are donated by the public, and all of the proceeds go to support the Raphael House programs.
If you are in the Bay Area, please stop by and visit our store at:
1045 Sutter St.
(between Larkin & Hyde in San Francisco's lower Nob Hill)
Thursday - Saturday 10am - 5:30pm
About Raphael House
www.raphaelhouse.org
Established in 1971 as the first shelter in San Francisco for homeless families, today Raphael House has a dedicated staff and Board of Directors from the local community, along with a small core of live-in staff who are Orthodox Christian. No religious obligations are placed on the families we serve. Raphael House relies solely on private sources to meet its annual budget. Support is received from individuals, businesses and corporations, foundations, church groups, and civic organizations that are committed to promoting stability for at-risk families. We do not seek or accept federal, state, or municipal government funding.
By enlisting the support of the community for our work, Raphael House sets in motion a cycle of renewal. We have sheltered more than 17,000 children and their parents through the assistance of more than 12,000 individuals who have invested financial and volunteer support to assist Raphael House.
Raphael House neither seeks nor accepts government funding. Agencies that rely on government funding sources can easily become compromised due to political or economic vicissitudes. In addition, private funding allows Raphael House to operate its programs founded upon the best practices that it has learned in over thirty years of service. Raphael House has instead established a more broad-based funding program to meet the annual budget of approximately $1.7 million. Our support is drawn from individuals, corporations, foundations, churches, synagogues, and other civic organizations that are committed to promoting stability for at-risk families. Our annual Gala provides 16% of our operating revenues, and income from our Thrift Store provides a steady income stream.
There are many ways to help -- online credit card donations, checks and cash, stock donations, donating goods and services, workplace giving, bequests and property gifts.
Please visit http://www.raphaelhouse.org/donate/index.html
for details.
A Closer Look at Raphael House of San Francisco
Raphael House, conceived as the first shelter for children and families experiencing homelessness in Northern California, provides an environment of loving support where families and children are able to restore and strengthen family bonds as they move toward brighter more hopeful futures. More than 17,000 families have passed through our doors where they have received the necessary tools to set in motion a cycle of renewal and growth. Today Raphael House provides a spectrum of full family support, including AfterSchool, ChildReach and AfterCare services where we partner with parents to engage the hearts and minds of the whole child as they experience the world around them.
For thirty-seven years, Raphael House has been a leader in family services in San Francisco. Through a "homeowners" approach to social service, we work with parents and families to lay the foundations for a lifetime of healthy development, achievement and stability. Long after a family departs to stable housing, our staff, volunteers and Board of Directors remain committed to the lifetime success of each of our families through a spectrum of AfterCare services. Our residential shelter program has a proven history of providing the foundation for healthy growth and development of children and families.What began as a homeless drop-in shelter has grown into a full service family support center where families thrive.
Our Philosophy
1. Beauty and Order
Everything at Raphael House should reflect beauty and order. This is the first healing antidote, which Raphael House offers for families in crisis and turmoil. Daily, healthy, safe patterns for children are the first steps in helping children learn to behave and overcome the feeling of being homeless.
2. Neighborly Relationship
We treat residents the same way we would want to be treated if we were in crisis and in need of help.Combining firm boundaries (orderliness) with the Golden Rule helps make Raphael House the kind of place where people in many different stations of life feel comfortable coming together. All material help is given in a context of neighborly relationship. In every aspect of service delivery, we treat people as neighbors, not units of service. Raphael House operates in such a way that donors and former residents can give.
3. God Heals
Staff expect and act on the belief that healing occurs in peoples lives through Raphael House when we don't get in the way through judgment, anger or fear. Terrible events happen in this world, including much physical suffering. We can't change the fact that tragedy happens in many different ways, but life outpaces tragedy and new opportunities exist almost immediately.
4. Virtue and Responsibility
In our services for families, we operate in accordance with traditional Judeo-Christian virtues. We don't require families to adopt our religious faith or practices. But we do require staff to be proactive in the presentation of virtue and responsibility in daily life. Our operational principle is to help families find strategies to negotiate the world that are honest and responsible.
5. Children must grow as children
All of our children's programs are aimed at nourishing the developing child rather than on premature adaptation to adulthood.
6. Entrepreneurial Spirit
We are entrepreneurs, not social workers. We are always looking for ways to improve on what we do; getting the most out of the resources we are given.Our entrepreneurial approach goes hand-in-hand with our belief in personal responsibility. Hence, our operational models are not drawn from the pervasive government-social work continuum, but from the spirit of small business and traditional religious philanthropy.
7. We tell our story
We keep track of what we do and we communicate it to our volunteers, donors and the San Francisco Community.
8. God blesses us to grow
In accordance with our Christian foundation, we must grow, not simply stay the same. God brings us opportunities and we feel a deep and divine mandate to do what is in our power to help the families we serve.The more wisely and aggressively we do this, the more God will grant an increase. Even in times of massive economic recession (when our actual income may drop) we expect God to increase our ability to provide help.
Our History
During the vibrant culture of San Francisco's 1960s, a small group of committed individuals, Christ the Saviour Brotherhood, formed with a mission to serve. In 1971, they began assisting temporarily single women and mothers with children while renting a location from the city. However, they quickly outgrew the limited space, and Mrs. Ella Rigney, the founder, was charged with finding a larger facility. Relocating to the former Golden Gate Hospital at 1065 Sutter Street., the facility was renovated to accommodate 50 beds in 17 bedrooms. Opening Thanksgiving week, 1977, Raphael House became the first homeless shelter for families in Northern California.Members of Christ the Saviour Brotherhood worked at Raphael House without compensation and lived alongside the families being served. In 1979, Brother Juniper's Restaurant opened at the front of the shelter and quickly became a San Francisco favorite while also providing much needed support to the agency.
In 1988, the members of Christ the Saviour Brotherhood converted to Orthodox Christianity. While no religious obligations are required of the families, to this day, the live-in staff is still comprised of a small core of Orthodox Christians.With the completion of a five-year budget plan and a $250,000 loan from Christ the Saviour Brotherhood, Raphael House incorporated independently. After working as volunteers for nearly fourteen years, employees earned their first paychecks in 1991. Shortly after, our beloved founder, Ella Rigney, passed away peacefully at Raphael House just short of her 100th birthday.
The staff formulated a comprehensive AfterCare program designed to provide services to former resident families who had moved on to stable housing. At the same time, Raphael House completed the financial transition plan and also passed its first balanced budget in 1994. Since expanding the AfterCare program to a separate building in 1996, Raphael House has received several prestigious management awards, including:The John R. May Award from the San Francisco Foundation,The Management Centers Award for Excellence in Non-Profit Management and The Sara Lee Leadership Award.
In 1999, Brother Juniper's Restaurant closed and the space was renovated to provide for an AfterSchool space for nearly 30 school- aged children. In 2000, Raphael House began to look to the future. With the help of Children's Program Director, Carol Cole, Sophia House was opened in West Oakland to serve former Raphael House families. Sophia House provides AfterCare, Day Care, weekend Respite Care and a spectrum of support services to families living in Oakland.
While Sophia House continued to serve families in the East Bay, Raphael House started the ChildReach program in 2005. ChildReach is designed to maintain a deeper connection with AfterCare families through engagement in cultural, academic, and outdoor excursions.
Currently, Raphael House serves approximantely 100 families through the Residential Shelter Program and 1,100 children and parents through it's AfterCare Program each year.
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