Book Review: Hope for the Mission by Kevin Nye
One of the significant injustices facing our neighbors is homelessness. Without safe and sustainable housing, it is extremely difficult for an individual or family to break cycles of poverty and live a flourishing life.
As followers of Jesus, homelessness is a Gospel issue.
I recently had the opportunity to read an important contribution to the conversation about ending homelessness with Kevin Nye’s new book: “Hope the Mission: Getting It Right in the Call to End Homelessness”.
Throughout the book, Nye discusses the multi-faceted challenges facing those without safe, long-term housing and how churches (and their properties) can help solve the housing shortage in the USA.
Here are a few of the points in the book that stood out to me:
In one year, over one million Americans experience homelessness for at least one night.
Housing First is “the practice of permanently housing people as soon as possible and then surrounding them with services.”
“Homelessness is worsening not because we don’t know how to resolve it, but because the rate at which people fall into homelessness continues to accelerate."
Poverty has an “inverse relationship to homelessness: cities and counties with higher rates of poverty actually had less homelessness…[because] the single strongest predictor of homelessness rates in a given region [are] the affordability and availability of housing.”
“Housing is a justice issue; and by extension, it’s a gospel issue.”
One of his main points is: Providing safe, permanent housing should be an initial step (rather than a last one) in helping break cycles of poverty and that the Church must engage in being a part of the solution.
I appreciate Nye’s perspective and his passion for helping our unhoused neighbors. His book moves the conversation forward in an important way and invites us as Christians to deeper and more effective engagement with homelessness.
The quote from his book that is sticking with me is: “What I am convinced of, more than ever, is that we won’t solve homelessness without churches.”
