Fra Biagio Conte, founder of Palermo's urban Mission of Hope and Charity, which feeds, houses, trains and cares for more than a thousand homeless people a day in four urban centers, has won a victory. The developer who bought the property adjacent to his Via Archirafi shelter where homeless men collect cardboard to recycle and use sheds to practice their professional crafts has decided to sell the land to the mission for the price they bought it for at auction. Now Fra Biagio and his army of volunteers and homeless must produce the 164,000-euro purchase price by the end of February in order totake possession. The find drive is on.
As usual, Fra Biagio obtained this encouraging result by sleeping outdoors on a cot on the property in question and refusing to eat until he got his way for the benefit of the homeless men who live under his care. It was the umpteenth time Fra Biagio Conte, a lay missionary who started life as the son of a well-to-businessman, put his life on the line for Palermo's poorest and most fragile.
As usual, Fra Biagio obtained this encouraging result by sleeping outdoors on a cot on the property in question and refusing to eat until he got his way for the benefit of the homeless men who live under his care. It was the umpteenth time Fra Biagio Conte, a lay missionary who started life as the son of a well-to-businessman, put his life on the line for Palermo's poorest and most fragile.