San Francisco, CA: A rent increase reportedly asked for by an Indian-American landlord in San Francisco may be the reason why two French-speaking nuns have been serving hundreds of homeless people in the poor Tenderloin neighborhood with home-made lunch from their popular soup kitchen may have to join the people that have giving service to since 2008.
According to Washington Post, Sisters Mary Benedicte and Mary of the Angels have offered the homeless people a refuge from the streets with their baked goods and home cooking.
They devote most of their time to running the kitchen, while seeking donations and selling French pastries to farmer’s markets on the side of their modest space at Fraternite Notre Dame Mary of Nazareth House in San Francisco. The nuns sleep in a tiny back room and prepare daily lunches for hundreds of homeless people.
According to the Post quoting San Francisco Chronicle and agency reports, the sisters have been threatened with eviction if they do not pay increased rent as demanded by landlord Nick Patel. The sisters are part of the greater Fraternite Notre Dame religious order, which was founded in France in 1977. According to the San Francisco chapter’s website, they feed more than 300 people every day.
However, the lawyer for Patel was quoted as saying that no eviction was going forward. “The owner of the building is currently in India, and plans to meet with Mary Benedicte and Mary of the Angels when he returns,” the Post quoted the lawyer as telling the Associated Press.
