Maccanon Brown Homeless Sanctuary

A Beacon of Light:  A Place to Be, to Belong, and to Become

We are a daytime sanctuary and multi-resource center for homeless and at-risk individuals.  Our core values are healing, spirituality, recovery, peer empowerment, dignity, nonviolence, advocacy, voice, sustainability and mutual transformation.  Our sanctuary is a place to be, belong and become within a transformational solidarity community--interfaith, nonpartisan, intercultural, and noncanonical.  We are a racially and economically diverse family of hope who seek to strengthen Milwaukee's overwhelmed safety net.

In March of 2014, MBHS was launched as a new start-up nonprofit without any money and without any resources.  Founders created MBHS so that MacCanon Brown’s successful 22-year track record of work with Milwaukee’s homeless could continue, seeing her vision as clearly needed in the safety net of Milwaukee.

Founders gave it MacCanon Brown’s name in 2014, to recognize her legacy of effective leadership in serving Milwaukee’s most vulnerable residents.  

Many people that have met Sister MacCanon have voiced that she is our very own Mother Theresa.  Her kind and thoughtful selfless leadership has brought hundreds of people together in solidarity.  We are grateful to have Sister MacCanon show us the way.  

Please check out our website at:  https://www.mbsanctuary.org/

Also, please see the article printed recently in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal written by James Causey entitled, "Sister MacCanon Brown is a beacon of hope in one of Milwaukee's most impoverished neighborhoods."  (Below)

It took Juliette Washington more than an hour to walk the six blocks from her home to the MacCanon Brown Sanctuary. When she arrived on this Tuesday morning in mid-May, she was too exhausted to get a number for the free food that was about to be given away.  “It’s not a problem, I took my time,” said Washington, who is scheduled to get a hip replacement in July. “I just need to catch my breath, and I’ll be just fine.”  Washington took a seat in her rolling walker for a few minutes to regain her strength before she was handed No. 69.  Over the next several hours, 100 people would take numbers on this sunny 68-degree day.  For three decades, including the last eight at 2461 W. Center St., Sister MacCanon Brown has worked to meet the most basic needs of people living in the 53206 ZIP code, one of Milwaukee's most impoverished.  That need is growing, Brown says, and she is seeing more new faces at the sanctuary these days — many of them are younger and coming from beyond the neighborhood. It's a sign of rising food prices, which were up 10.8 percent for the year ended April 2022 — the largest 12-month percentage increase since November 1980, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Brown’s operation is one-stop-shop for residents who need everything from a brown bag lunch to living room furniture. Brown and volunteers serve hundreds of people every week.  “I don’t think people realize how hard it is on people right now with the cost of food and everything," Brown says. "The needs and demands are growing every week and sometimes it’s hard to keep up, but we make a way.”  

The USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin is highlighting the sanctuary as one of the many organizations and individuals across Wisconsin that are bringing people together in service. Our Wisconsin Weavers Project is borrowed from The Aspen Institute, a global nonprofit headquartered in Washington, D.C., which started Weave: The Social Fabric Project in 2018.