Information on Sleeping at St. Stephen's Church

St. Stephen's Church is pleased to offer sleeping space on our floors to groups travelling to Washington, DC, for protests, conferences, work projects, or other events. St. Stephen’s has offered its space since the 1960s; tens of thousands of people have slept on our floors over the years, protesting various wars, demanding equal rights, witnessing for peace at military arms bazaars and at the Pentagon, protesting international structures that support inequalities, or attending conferences or learning about life in the inner city. Although longer stays are possible, our space is appropriate for short stays of 1-3 nights.

Please read the information on this page carefully. If you find that we offer what you are looking for, at the bottom of this page you can submit a request to sleep at St. Stephen's.

Important Things to Know
• Groups that wish to use our space for sleeping must be committed to adhering strictly to non-violent protests. 
• St. Stephen’s cannot provide showers.
• St. Stephen's does not allow people sleeping overnight to cook meals in the building, but arrangements can be made in advance to purchase meals for $4 each from Thrive DC, which operates a soup kitchen in our building.
• St. Stephen’s cannot provide secure space for the storage of belongings during the day.
• All sleeping is on hard floors. Sleepers should bring mats or pads.
• St. Stephen’s usually provides space to sleepers from late evening until early morning. Some evenings sleepers cannot enter until as late as 10pm, and some mornings sleepers must leave as early as 7am, depending on the building use schedule.
• Although we have sufficient floor space for hundreds of people to sleep (the largest group to sleep here in recent years was 550 people attending a climate change conference in March 2009), the limiting factor is ten toilets in five bathrooms.
• Groups that wish to sleep at St. Stephen’s need to designate one of their members to be their coordinator for sleeping at St. Stephen’s. Church staff must be able to meet with this person in advance during normal office hours, and this person (or persons, if that works better) must be on site at all times group members are in the St. Stephen’s church building.
• St. Stephen’s prefers to make arrangements directly with the organizers of a large event and not with many smaller groups attending the event.
• St. Stephen’s requests a donation of $5 per person per night.
• St. Stephen’s may request that groups pay a security deposit prior to sleeping at the church.
• St. Stephen's does not provide sleeping space for individuals; we only provide space to groups.

Our basic rules for groups sleeping at St. Stephen's
• Alcoholic beverages may be consumed by special permission only.
• No illegal substances.
• No smoking in the building; if participants smoke outside, they must deposit trash in the dumpster and not leave cigarette butts on the ground.
• No open flames or cooking in the building.
• Participants must be considerate of others in the building and in the neighborhood and behave appropriately at all times, including being quiet when entering or leaving the building between 10pm and 8am.
• St. Stephen’s does not guarantee the safety of belongings left in the church, as the building is used by many people every day.
• Only street parking is available, as all parking lots in the vicinity of the church are privately owned; ticketing and towing are enforced both in the parking lots around the church and on neighborhood streets that have restricted parking.
• Rooms – including bathrooms – must be cleaned sufficiently each morning for others to use during the day.

Submit a request to sleep at St. Stephen's Church

To request sleeping space, please complete the following information. We try to respond to requests Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.