Saint Benedict Joseph Labre is the patron saint of homeless people. He was born in a middle-class family on 26 March 1748. He was educated in his native village in France.
As the years went by, he grew distaste for any form of knowledge which did not help him to grow closer to God. After experimenting with several rigorous ways of religious life, he reportedly had an internal illumination. He then believed that God was calling him to a life of devotion “not in a wilderness or cloister but in the midst of the world.”
He abandoned his all-materialistic upbringing. And started a pilgrimage in an old coat with a rosary around his neck and a rosary between his fingers. He lived a life of poverty, sleeping on the streets and eating simple meals from charity or taken from the garbage. Many hours of his life were spent in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
He collapsed on the steps of the church of Santa Maria dei Monti in Rome from the exhaustion of living for 13 years in absolute poverty; and died later that day on 16 April 1783 – also his feast day.