Are You Like Us Now? Jocelyn Rebuilds Hope

“Are you like us now?”

That was the question Jocelyn Cortese heard from the unhoused diners when she walked back into Bread & Roses Café last April. She had been gone for a while. In the wake of the devastating LA wildfires that swept through the Palisades, Jocelyn, a woman who has spent 19 years serving meals to those experiencing homelessness, found herself without a roof over her own head.

“The fires were awful,” Jocelyn recalls. “We raised our kids there.”

“I had to reflect on that,” Jocelyn says. “I love being at the Café, but suddenly, I wasn’t going back to a beautiful home at the end of my shift. “I was standing in the same space of loss as the people I served.” As St. Joseph Center celebrates 50 years of service, Jocelyn’s journey serves as a powerful testament to what it means to be a Beloved Community. Her story isn’t just about the fire—it’s about the threads that bind us together when everything material turns to ash.

More than a Meal: The Gateway to Hope

For 19 years, Jocelyn has seen how St. Joseph Center’s Bread & Roses Café serves as the front door to transformation. It starts with a restaurant-style meal served with dignity, but it grows into something much deeper. By building trust and nourishment over a hot of food, guests feel safe enough to reach out for additional help they need, whether it’s housing, healthcare, or mental health support. The Café is the gateway. It’s where trusting a new journey home begins.

A Partnership of Purpose: Jocelyn and David

Jocelyn’s path to service was paved by her deep friendship with David Miller, her priest since 1991. When he retired, they decided to carry their mission into the world together, starting a 19-year tradition of volunteering at the Café as their “weekly play date.” David’s influence on the mission is profound. An 18-year volunteer and donor himself, he has consistently listened to and responded to the program’s needs. St. Matthew’s Parish created an outreach endowment fund for David when he retired as their priest. He used those funds to provide essentials for Bread and Roses Cafe — a new coffee machine, a cold storage room, and repairs to the bathrooms. Together, they have become staples of St. Joseph Center’s 50-year legacy.

“You Are My Community”

When the fire took everything, the community stepped up for Jocelyn in the same way she and St. Joseph Center have done for others for decades. Friends sent sweaters and jackets. Others provided critical supplies like socks and underwear. As a lifelong lover of books, one of the most touching gestures came from a friend who sent an entire Anne Lamott collection to help replace the library Jocelyn had lost to the flames.

“The very first calls I received after the fire, were Dr. Ryan Smith and the outreach partners,” she recalls. “You are my community. Ryan came in talking about Beloved Community, and that hit me so deep. That’s what St. Joseph Center is. We lift each other up.”

The Hope in Rebuilding

The loss of her home changed Jocelyn’s view of service. By walking through the fire, she gained a lived understanding of the people she serves. “I’ve learned how to be truly present with someone who is grieving and has lost everything,” she says.

“That gave me hope,” she said.

While she lost items that can never be replaced, Jocelyn found her grounding in the debris. Nine firefighters helped her sift through the ash to recover her wedding band and her mother’s wedding ring. But it was a different discovery that truly shifted her perspective: three clay ladybug pencil holders her kids had made in kindergarten at St. Matthew’s Parish. To anyone else, they were just bits of clay. To Jocelyn, they were a sign. “That gave me hope,” she said. This past Thanksgiving, her now-grown children sat together and repainted those ladybugs—sacred act of rebuilding what was lost.

Today, she wears a bracelet that says MHBD (My House Burned Down). Some of her friends were actually mad at her for not taking the loss harder, but as a woman of faith, Jocelyn is determined to move forward with gratitude. She is supported by a Beloved Community that refuses to let her fall. “I can’t imagine how I would feel not having community to get through this grief. You have to have hope.”