Information on sleeping at St. Stephen's

Due to the Covid-19 quarantine all public activities including space rentals are canceled until further notice.

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Groups traveling to Washington, D.C., for protests, conferences, service work, or other events are welcome to sleep at St. Stephen’s Church.

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St. Stephen’s offers sleeping space on our wood and concrete floors. Thanks to Thrive DC, which operates a social service program in our building, small groups can use Thrive’s shower room and can arrange for prepared meals, both for additional fees.

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Please read 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.

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• All sleeping is on hard floors. Sleepers should bring mats or pads.

• We usually provide 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. If available, the dining room, auditorium, and church can be reserved for day or evening use for an extra fee.

• 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. We must be able to meet with this person in advance during normal office hours (9:30am-4:30pm Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday), and this person must be on site at all times group members are in the St. Stephen’s church building.

• We do not provide sleeping space for individuals; we only provide space to groups.

• We may request that groups pay a security deposit prior to sleeping at the church.

• Groups that wish to use our space for sleeping must be committed to adhering strictly to non-violent protests.

• Cooking in the building is allowed but only in the kitchen and with the express permission from St. Stephen's.

• St. Stephen’s can provide locked space for storage of belongings but assumes no responsibility for items either lost or stolen.

• There is a limit of 100 people sleeping in the building at one time. The main limiting factor is ten toilets in five bathrooms. A minimum fee of $250/night also applies.

• St. Stephen’s makes arrangements directly with the organizers of a large event and not with many smaller groups attending the event; smaller groups must contact the event organizers.

• St. Stephen’s requests a donation of $11 per person per night.

Showers and Food

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Thrive DC allows small groups (less than 20-30 people) the use of its shower room between 7pm and midnight. The room must be cleaned after the last shower. The shower room is used during the day by homeless people. The fee for showering is $1 per shower.

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Thrive DC can prepare meals for small groups. Arrangements for meals must be made at least one week in advance. The fee for meals is $5 per meal.

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If what we offer is of interest to you, here's what to do:

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1. Check if space is available

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Please check this calendar to see if another group has already booked space for the dates you are interested in. Please remember we only let one group at a time sleep in the building. (If you are attending an event for which sleeping space has already been booked by the event organizers, please be in touch with them, and not us, to make arrangements to sleep at St. Stephen's.)

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Make a donation to reserve event or sleeping space by following this link..