1) What is the significance of the “13 Houses Jubilee Project” and its connection with the 2025 Jubilee Year?

The 13 Houses Campaign, launched in 2018, has two objectives: the collaboration of all the branches of the Vincentian Family (Religious, Consecrated Life, and Lay associations), 176 branches in total, to build houses decent for those people who do not have a place to call home.
As the Jubilee Year of the whole Church to be celebrated in 2025 was being prepared, the main coordinator got to know the “13 Houses Jubilee Project” and was enthusiastic to suggest to Pope Francis that the project should be included in the Jubilee Year, as one of the concrete gestures of charity of Pope Francis.
The coordinating team of the “13 Houses Jubilee Project” selected 12 countries where, during the Jubilee Year, the project will be implemented. The 13th country confirmed by Pope Francis was Syria, with the Holy Father himself becoming the sponsor for the 13 houses to be built in Syria during the Jubilee Year.
On November 17th, 2024, Pope Francis blessed 13 symbolic keys representing the 13 chosen countries at the St. Peter’s Basilica. During the whole Jubilee Year, different initiatives will be encouraged within the Vincentian family, as well as within the whole church, to support the building of as many houses as possible in those 13 countries.
One year later, on the World Day of the Poor in November 2025, one family from each of the 13 countries chosen to be part of Pope Francis’s charity initiative during the Jubilee year will, if Providence will desire so, travel to Rome. There they will receive from the Holy Father the real keys of all the houses built in a specific country during the Jubilee Year. They will be brought back to their country to pass on to all the families or individuals who, from that time on, will have their own, so long desired, home.
The extraordinary gesture from Pope Francis to include the “13 Houses Project” as part of the Jubilee of the Church will, God willing, bring many people beyond the Vincentian Family to get involved in the project. So many more people—people who live on the streets, refugees, and slum dwellers—will have the possibility to achieve their dream: having their own home.

2) How can the Vincentian Family get involved in the Campaign, and what specific actions can they take to contribute more effectively?

As Pope Francis had chosen the “13 Houses Project” as one of the visible signs of charity during the Jubilee Year, I strongly believe that no member of the worldwide Vincentian Family can be indifferent to actively starting or continuing to participate in this Campaign.
There is no branch of the 176 branches of the worldwide Vincentian Family who can say, “I do not have the means to help,” or “I do not know how to start,” or “the number of the persons who do not have a home is so great that my small cooperation will not do much good,” or any other reasons that may take them away from getting involved.
Rather, to build our logic on negative reasons, there is so much that speaks to all the members of the 176 branches of the Vincentian Family. It is an extraordinary opportunity to double, triple, or even quadruple the homes built until now by the members of the Vincentian Family.
I strongly encourage each branch of the Vincentian Family who so far has not participated in the “13 Houses Project” to get informed as soon as possible about how to get involved and in what ways—reading the accompanying materials, understanding the Project, and thinking about how you can start participating.
I urge every single branch, in whichever country you are present, to join the rest of the branches where the project was already launched and to encourage the other branches who are not currently participating to do so.
The FHA has an international fund to help poorer countries, where usually the needs are greater but the financial resources are extremely limited. The different branches or individual members can also participate by making a donation to the International Fund of the “13 Houses Jubilee Project.”.
It is Jesus that we are or will be helping!!!
Dear members of the Worldwide Vincentian Family: May none of us let this Campaign pass during the Jubilee Year without getting personally involved via your branch or as an individual member, so our joy can be great “here and now” on earth and later on in Heaven!

3) As President of the Executive Board of the Vincentian Family, how do you see the “13 Houses Campaign” aligning with the Vincentian Family Charism and Spirituality?

There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that the “13 Houses” Campaign is totally aligned with the Vincentian Charism and Spirituality. Whatever good we try to do, we do it for, to, and with Jesus. Jesus is at the center of it all.
Whatever services we do, including helping those persons who do not have a home, like the “13 Houses” Campaign, we do it for, to, and with Jesus!
The “13 Houses” Campaign is for now the only international project of all the Worldwide Vincentian Family that, from its beginning, had the goal of all the branches collaborating to be involved and participate.
Collaboration and serving together with other branches remain an enormous challenge within the Vincentian family. In certain countries (on a national, regional, or local level), some branches are collaborating and serving together. But for many branches to collaborate and serve together at least in some areas or projects, this is still a faraway reality.
I urge every single branch to make collaboration and common service in the “13 Houses” Campaign a reality “here and now.” Especially being encouraged by Pope Francis, who himself has become part of the project, not just in words but also in deeds.
The other goal is to serve and help as many people who do not have a place to call home as we can reach, for home to become a reality for them “here and now.”
If there are 50 persons involved in the Project, or 500, 1000, 10,000, 100,000 and the numbers go on, we can make a radical difference when more of us are focused on the same goal.
There are two “yeses” we need to keep in mind as we engage in the concrete service of the “13 Houses” Campaign.
Yes, to collaborate and serve together with all the branches and individuals present in a specific country on national, regional, and local levels.
Yes, to Jesus, remaining ourselves over and over again. We are serving Jesus in the persons who live in poverty, who do not have their house—simple as it can be, but a place they can shortly start calling home.

4) How do you encourage Vincentians as Pilgrims of Hope, to maintain hope and perseverance in the face of the global challenge of homelessness?

All that is good comes from Jesus! Faith, Hope and Love remain our strong foundations because they have their beginning and end in Jesus!
The hope we are talking about is not something we can compare to unrealistic goals, fantasies, or never-realised dreams. Hope, written with majuscule, is built on Somebody, who on Earth and Heaven, has the last word: Jesus, and so, Hope can never delude us, even in the worst of world scenarios, among which homelessness is one, because Hope is built on solid rock, on Jesus!
Every good deed that is done to my sister and brother is done to, for, and with Jesus.
Hope and perseverance become the needed instruments to reach the desired goal.

5) What is the message that you would like to share with those who joined the fight against homelessness?

The term “homelessness” includes, as it was proposed by the committee of the Vincentian Family at the United Nations in an official meeting of the member states, three groups of people: those living on the street, refugees, and slum dwellers.
In 2019, the Vincentian Family proposed to the United Nations to officially recognize the official existence of homeless persons in the world, as at that time the reality of their presence was not always recognized across the world.
The next desire and steps are to bring the people who are homeless onto the maps of governments—national, regional and local institutions— to try as much as we are able to eradicate homelessness, making it one of the next achievable goals of the United Nations
It is a historic moment for the whole Vincentian Family, who in different ways had been helping the homeless from its beginnings in the 17th century. It is now being encouraged and supported by Pope Francis during the Jubilee Year, trying to bring to the whole Church and the world the need to do all possible to eradicate this state of living. It is unworthy for a human person, unworthy for a child of God, unworthy for Jesus, who lives in every human being. The more the person is in need, the more you can see the face of Jesus reflected in them.

Dear members of the Worldwide Vincentian Family:
May none of us let this Campaign pass during the Jubilee Year without getting personally involved via your branch or as an individual member, so our joy can be great ‘here and now’ on earth and later on in Heaven!

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