Sanctuary: Kip Tiernan and Rosie’s Place

Posted on 04/03/2022

Candlewick Press | 978-1536211290

The face of homeless women is our face. She is our mother, our sister, our daughter and she deserves more than three hots and a cot as the saying goes.

— Kip Tiernan

As a young child growing up in her granny’s house, Kip Tiernan “learned to be generous and to care about others.” Even with a large family living in Granny’s home, there was always food for “those who knocked on her kitchen door.”

Years later, as an adult, Kip took up the call to help those less fortunate. She sold her advertising business and began volunteering at St. Philip’s/Warwick House, a Boston-based Catholic civil rights ministry. At that time in the early 70s, there were no shelters for homeless women, who disguised themselves as men in order to get a meal and a bed in a men-only shelter.

CLICK TO ENLARGE © illustration by Victoria Tentler-Krylov

Determined to help, Kip visited other cities, looking for solutions.

“Kip hoped to open a women’s shelter different from the dreary ones she had seen, where men slept with their shoes under their pillows to keep them from being stolen.

She wanted a sanctuary with flowers and music where women wouldn’t be reminded they were poor, a shelter with no chores, no questions asked, just good meals and warm beds.”

CLICK TO ENLARGE © illustration by Victoria Tentler-Krylov

On Easter Sunday, 1974, Kip along with four other volunteers opened up Rosie’s Place, the first women-only shelter in the United States.

Over the years, Rosie’s Place has become much more than “three hots and a cot.” Today, they are a multi-service community center with a range of support and outreach programs that help some 12,000 women/year.

Sanctuary: Kip Tiernan and Rosie’s Place, written by Christine McDonnell, a former educator at Rosie’s Place, is the sensitive and inspirational story of a woman who had the drive and vision to make a lasting difference in the lives of countless women and their children. Rendered in soft colors with watercolor and digital media, illustrator Victoria Tentler-Krylov embues the book with warmth and emotion. This beautiful biography will remind readers that each small kindness can build, bringing hope and possibility to those in need.