Joe’s Addiction is more than a coffee shop,

it is a community.

Many who “hang out” at Joe’s are committed to living our lives together and serving our surrounding community.

At Joe's we believe that it's easier to be good when you're hanging out with other people who are trying to be good. All of us carry with us the pains of our past, addictions and struggles, as well as our joys, our hopes and our dreams. Many who frequent Joe's are experiencing homelessness, mental illness, harmful substance use, and the basic struggle to pay the utility bills. We have found that life is better when we do it together. Here are some of the ways we do it:

  • Open coffee shop hours provide a safe, climate comfortable location to drink coffee, play cards, chat with other life journeyers or sit in a corner and read a book.

  • We eat breakfast (9:00) and lunch (12:30) together every day Joe’s is open.

  • Our Free Store (described below) is open on Wednesdays and Saturdays for those who want to share “stuff.”

  • Shower and laundry facilities are available to anyone who needs them.

  • Special events from free clinics to Thanksgiving Dinner happen throughout the year.

  • Joe's hosts a Community Garden where neighbors can help grow vegetables and can share in the harvest each year.

  • Community Gatherings happen on Sunday’s at 10:30am for those who’d like to learn more about how to Love Each Other and Practice Nonviolence.

Featured
Why Don't They Just Get a Job?
Why Don't They Just Get a Job?

Once, I was helping a man to take this kind of test for a job at Home Depot. I read the questions and answers out loud to him, hoping that hearing it aloud would help him recognize the reverse aspect of some of the questions. After pausing a long while, he said, “I think they’re trying to trick me.”

no-matter-what kind of love
no-matter-what kind of love

Emotional up and downswings caused by relational conflicts or life disappointments are magnified by the struggles of living outside in the sweaty heat, freezing cold, or soaking rain. Add mental illness and addiction and the fight to hold on to hope is desperate. Finding joy is a treasure.

Baked Potatoes Under the Overpass
Baked Potatoes Under the Overpass

From day to day, I never know who will show up or how many. Some days it’s a dozen. Other days 25 people gather to eat and connect. We check in on each other, notice who we haven’t seen in a few days, offer encouragement, and eat yummy food.

My Racism
My Racism

When the protests began, I knew I needed to listen, to read books on racism, to watch movies and documentaries, to hear the lived stories of black people and to sit with the awareness of racism and try to pay attention to where it is—not just in our society and in our systems, but in me.

Tuna Salad with Mandarin Oranges
Tuna Salad with Mandarin Oranges

One of our young #lovegang guys loudly complained, “Fruit in meat. That’s just not right. I don’t do fruit in meat.” I asked him if he had tried it before. He said, “I don’t need to try it. I know fruit don’t go in meat. My mom always made tuna salad . . .” and he went on to loudly proclaim what things belong in tuna salad.

It's Not Right : mental health and the homeless
It's Not Right : mental health and the homeless

As Brandon eats his chicken noodle soup, we put a hat on his head. Someone hands him a pair of those warm socks, and the new guy wraps a warm blanket around his shoulders. Snot drips from Brandon’s long nose. 

Chuck Comes Home
Chuck Comes Home

(Excerpt from Beloved Chaos. “Chuck” died in his sleep on the back porch of Joe’s Addiction on May 24th, 2019. He died at home.)

Angry much?
Angry much?

The difference between this young man’s life and Drew Barrymore's in “50 First Dates,” is he has no supportive family to lovingly help him through each day. His father died years ago. His mother is an addict, who is suffering a long, slow, terminal illness.

How Love Does
How Love Does

A couple of minutes later, a Love Gang guy came to me and said, “I’m going out there. She just looked through the window with that ‘Rescue me’ look in her eye.”

Judgment is Blind
Judgment is Blind

They told him to load the dirty dishes into the dishwasher and to empty them when they finished washing. Chuck is a bit OCD, and it bothered him that sometimes dishes came out with cooked-on-crusties.