“God meant things to be much easier than we have made them.”
Dorothy Day
Dignity House: Our First Initiative
Dignity House is the first initiative of the Dignity Project: a broader effort to reimagine how Rhode Island responds to poverty, crisis and social breakdown.
At its core, Dignity House is about direct service and mutual aid. As part of the broader project, the relationships built at Dignity House will inform our later policy and research work, grounding it in lived experience rather than academic, abstractions.
The Catholic Worker Movement
Dignity House is rooted in the Catholic Worker tradition, which emphasizes personal responsibility, hospitality, and solidarity. Rather than treating people as clients or cases, it focuses on building enduring relationships within our communities.
Dignity House also follows in the Catholic Worker tradition of foregoing registration as a 501c(3) registered non-profit. Therefore, contributions to Dignity House are non tax-deductible.
Dignity House is not yet a permanent physical location, but that is the long-term goal: to establish a stable place of hospitality where people can come for support, community, and continuity. Until then, the work happens wherever it is needed.
David Alden Sears
Director, Dignity House
David grew up in Knightsville in Cranston, Rhode Island in a working-class union family marked by financial insecurity, addiction, and instability. Like many families living one emergency away from crisis, he saw how poverty, housing insecurity, public services, schools, and community support systems shape the lives of ordinary people.
Today, he works directly with young people as a behavioral support professional and educator. David also serves as a Eucharistic Minister and Lector at the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Providence.