Prague café staffed by homeless women will reopen this week

“Homelike” is the English translation for Jako Doma the first NGO focused on gender-specific homelessness in the Czech Republic. The organization’s aim is to bring the issue of female homelessness, often linked to domestic violence, into larger Czech society.

The canteen re-opens again on November 6, after closing down for a period of time last year. Typically open just for lunch, the restaurant will operate throughout the evening on its opening day serving baked goods such as cakes, strudels, quiche, and pizza bread, as well as a lunch menu of garlic soup, potato gnocchi, roasted root vegetables, and pancakes.

Free coffee will be served and an acoustic set by Czech punk accordionist Stinka is scheduled.

Jako Doma also organizes year-round public events where people can sample the group’s catering efforts and pop up at Prague festivals and markets. They also conduct extensive research focused on the situation of homeless women in the Czech Republic while offering a complex support system of legal and social help as well as shelters and a “showers for homeless women” initiative.

Some 23,830 homeless people, including 2,600 minors under 18, lived in the Czech Republic in the spring.

Men made up 80 percent of the homeless who spend the night outdoors in public hostels, while the share of men and women is more equal in asylum homes with 30 percent of women, 38 percent of men and 32 percent of children.