Founded as a “house of hospitality” in 1966 by Kathe and John McKenna, Haley House is a multi-faceted nonprofit organization located in Boston, Massachusetts focused on using food to build community. Inspired in part by the Catholic Worker Movement, and the belief that in order to serve impoverished people one needs to live among them, the organizers of Haley House saw the value of developing long-term connections with those they sought to help. Kathe and John McKenna invited people sleeping on the streets in their Boston neighborhood to live with them in their apartment, offering food, shelter, and community. Over time with funding, they purchased property in the South End of Boston and opened Haley House as a soup kitchen in 1967, living in the rooms above.
In 1972, Haley House became Boston’s first homeless service provider to create permanent, affordable housing. From 1982-2012, Haley House ran an organic farm, Noonday Farm, in Winchendon, Massachusetts, which supplied food for its soup kitchen. In the 1990s, programs were initiated to teach guests of the soup kitchen how to bake bread and to sell it to the South End community. This led to the formation of the Bakery Training Program, where community members could gain practical skills and employment experience. In 2005, Haley House opened Haley House Bakery Café (HHBC) in Dudley Square (now Nubian Square, in Roxbury, Massachusetts), and went on to purchase the building in 2015. In addition to offering nutrient-rich food, HHBC offered economic opportunities for people with barriers to traditional employment, like those transitioning out of incarceration.
As of 2023, the work of Haley House falls into five interconnected categories: direct services including a soup kitchen and food pantry; permanent affordable housing of up to 110 units in Boston's South End; urban agriculture, with programs such as the Mel King School Garden school plot in the South End and an urban farm in Roxbury; nutritional education programs and training, such as Take Back the Kitchen cooking classes for youth and Life Foundations Training (LiFT) for returning citizens; and the social enterprise restaurant, Haley House Bakery Café (operations temporarily suspended as of January 2022).
The organization welcomes people facing homelessness and formerly incarcerated individuals as a valuable part of the larger community. Volunteers generally invest two years of their lives, and in exchange, they receive room and board, living “in community” above Haley House, running its kitchen, and caring for its guests.
