By David Manzo, Special to the Reporter
Two years ago, making his way to a Pine Street Inn meeting, Father Frank Kelley caught his heel on a sidewalk in the South End. Falling forward, his face hit the pavement. He arrived at the meeting bloodied.
At first, Frank waved off a trip to the hospital. After all, there was work to be done and problems to be solved: Ending homelessness was a bigger goal than tending to his needs.
Eventually, when Frank and I arrived at the Massachusetts General Hospital Emergency Room, Frank waited patiently to be seen. There was nothing that day that would distinguish him from others. But as time passed, all I wanted to say to the staff member was:
“Do you know who this man is? Do you know what he has done for the city? This is the founder of Pine Street Inn!”
But Frank didn’t want any special treatment that evening. He patiently waited his turn.
It is impossible to estimate the hours that Frank— who died on Feb. 4 — spent at Pine Street Inn, New England’s largest provider of services to men and women experiencing homelessness.
In 1968, as a newly ordained 27-year-old priest, Frank was there when the Association of Boston Urban Priests (ABUP) was approached to save the only shelter Boston had for homeless men, a dilapidated building at the edge of Chinatown at 8 Pine Street.
As Frank recounted it, “We had no idea what we were doing but we knew we needed to do it.”
Father Frank Kelley, far left next to Paul Sullivan as the Inn moved from Chinatown to the South End in 1980. Photo courtesy David Manzo
The Boston we have today, with fewer than 3 percent of our brothers and sisters without shelter (as compared to many cities that exceed 50 percent), is due in large part to Frank’s vision and leadership and three extraordinary Pine Street executive directors, Paul Sullivan, Rich Ring, and Lyndia Downie and their teams. Frank’s mentorship and support were keys to each of their successes.
Frank never saw himself as others saw him. In recent years, when others referred to him as the founder of Pine Street Inn, he pulled a two-sided card from his pocket that listed who he felt were the real founders (plural). There were 39 names on it, including his.
For Frank it was never about one person.
It struck me that his list included names from early days of the Inn – Bob Walsh, Vin McCarthy, Father Walter Waldron, Kay Whalen, Kathe McKenna and Barbara McInnis, but it also included more recent names like Mayor Tom Menino and Tim Barrett.
In Frank’s mind, Pine Street Inn was always evolving. That was what kept it effective.
The early days of the Inn were, as Paul Sullivan said, “three hots and a cot.” Frank knew that we needed more than shelter beds. We needed a comprehensive approach that included job training, day and overnight outreach vans, collaboration with other non-profit groups like Boston Healthcare for the Homeless, working with community and church groups, volunteers, as well as business and political leaders.
Frank helped lead our decades long march until today, when the Inn has created more than 1,100 units of permanent, affordable housing.
Frank always heard the words of his late friend Bob Walsh saying, “Our work is always about finding solutions to ending homelessness.”
Father Frank Daly, a classmate of Frank’s, recently asked me to describe Frank Kelley’s gifts. The answer would be a very long book. But I will share three.
First, in 2000, we began searching for our next executive director. Although Lyndia Downie felt she was “not yet ready” to lead the Inn, Frank pushed her to apply. He knew Lyndia was ready before Lyndia did. Frank had the ability to see gifts in others that we often could not see in ourselves.
Second, Frank tied his life to the Gospel message found in Matthew 25: 35-36 that faith is demonstrated through action to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, visit the imprisoned, and bury the dead.
I was struck when Frank said, “I could not do them all so I tried to do one.” And he did that one very well! After learning about Frank’s death, Rich Ring said to me, “He lived the Gospel.”
Finally, we would not have the Pine Street Inn we have today without Frank’s leadership, including his 30 years as board chair. I remember the board meeting when we voted to boldly expand permanent housing.
Throughout the Inn’s many transitions, Frank always reminded us that “we are more of a family than an institution. There is always a tension when you have a large number of people living together. Pine Street teaches us about the human quality. They make room for everyone here.”
Frank was relentless in this quest. Even in his final days in hospice at Regina Cleri, Boston’s retirement community for diocesan priests, he was still peppering Lyndia with advice on how to continue to move the Inn forward. Frank was not satisfied with mere institutional responses to homelessness. He demanded that we care for the individual needs of each guest.
I will leave it to others to discuss Frank’s impactful work at Sacred Heart in Roslindale and with the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO) and with all the people he mentored, counseled, and prayed for and with.
For at his core, this man was a parish priest, whose parish not only included the men and women at Pine Street Inn, but the entire City of Boston.
Lyndia summed up Frank’s leadership and compassion: “He was our North Star.”
David Manzo volunteered at the old Inn at 8 Pine Street. He joined the Pine Street Inn Board in 1988, served as board chair from 2002 to 2006 and is currently a life trustee.
