Kip Tiernan

Kip Tiernan is an American activist who may be best known as founder of Rosie's Place. She has been an advocate for economic and social justice for nearly three decades. Tiernan has protested and lobbied for affordable and accessible housing, health care and education as well as jobs, civil rights and peace. Drawing from her early roots in the radical Catholic left movement, Tiernan encourages people "to take the risk of being human".

Born in West Haven, Connecticut, Tiernan lost both her parents by the time she was eleven and was raised by her grandmother. An unconventional child for the time, she took flying lessons at age 16 and began her interest in jazz. She arrived in Boston in her early 20s and met up with writers and reporters who encouraged her to pursue a career in advertising. For the next twenty years, Kip wrote mail order catalogues, direct mail and advertisements, and musicals. She received a McGraw-Hill award for a public relations campaign for a corporate insurance company. She also produced musical reviews. Tiernan is currently rewriting a play about housing, hope and humor that she wrote twenty years ago.

Tiernan has also used her writing skills to pen articles for the Catholic left, which appeared in the Boston Phoenix, Boston Globe and Boston After Dark. Through her parish, Kip came in contact with St. Philip’s/Warwick House, which was involved in the civil rights and anti-war movements. In 1967, she was asked to help coordinate a press conference at St. Philip’s and soon thereafter joined the team ministry because "poor people need advertising, too". Her work took her into housing projects, mental institutions, jails and hospitals where she saw first hand the effects of de-institutionalization and the lack of a coherent public policy to address the needs of poor and homeless people.

In 1974, Kip founded Rosie's Place, the first drop-in and emergency shelter for women in the United States, in response to the increasing numbers of needy women throughout the country. Rosie’s Place provided poor and homeless women with pastoral care, meals, a safe environment, and companionship. Tiernan helped Rosie’s Place evolve from simply providing shelter to offering services such as a drop-in center, extended-stay housing, permanent housing, and other on-site services.

Tiernan was also a founder of the Boston Food Bank and co-founder of the Boston Women’s Fund, Health Care for the Homeless and Community Works. In 1980 she co-founded the Poor People’s United Fund, a “spare change” funding source for grass roots community groups involved in issues of homelessness, hunger and access to justice, and she currently serves as the co-director. In 1990 she established the Ethical Policy Institute, a multi-disciplinary community of people engaged in political analysis, economics and community activism. Tiernan also teaches as an adjunct professor at the University of Massachusetts. A popular public speaker and social commentator, Tiernan has lectured at hundreds of high schools, colleges, churches and conferences and written articles in local as well as national publications.Fact|date=September 2008

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Currently:
Adjunct Professor, University of Massachusetts 1990-present

Honorary Degrees:
Doctor of Human Services, Simmons College 1986
Doctor of Human Services, Anna Maria 1987
Rogers Fellow Andover 1988
Bunting Fellow Radcliffe 1988-1989
Doctor of Humanities, Holy Cross 1989
Doctor of Humane Letters, Harvard University 1989
Doctor of Law, Northeastern University 1990
Doctor of Social Sciences, Salem State College 1991
Doctor of Humanities, Regis College 1993
Doctor of Social Sciences, Bentley College 1997
Doctor of Human Services, Suffolk University 1997
Doctor of Humane Letters, Newbury College 1998
Doctor of Humane Letters, Emerson College 1998
Doctor of Humane Letters, Pine Manor 1998
Doctor of Humane Letters, Boston College 2000

Awards (Partial Listing):
South End Redevelopment Authority Closeout 1979
Isaac Hecker Award (Paulist Center) 1979
Mass. Association of Mental Health 1981
Boston NOW 1983
Boston League of Women Voters 1983
Boston Fair Housing Award 1984
Eleanor Roosevelt Award 1985
National Association of Social Workers 1985
Boston TAB Newspaper (Woman of the Year) 1986
Action for Boston Community Development 1987
Martin Luther King Lincoln/Sudbury Regional High 1988
Social Action Ministries 1988
Woman of the Year Political Award (Boston College) 1989
Noetic Sciences Natural Award 1991
Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus 1992
New England Women’s Leadership Award 1995

[ [http://www.rosies.org/cultures/en-US/About/OurFounder.htm Rosie's Place - Our Founder ] ] [ [http://www.rosies.org/cultures/en-US/default.htm Rosie's Place - A sanctuary for poor and homeless women ] ]

References