Faith-Based Groups Address Homelessness Through Housing, Showers and Food Programs

Houses of worship have long been a core part of America’s social safety net, responding to poverty around them as part of their spiritual calling to serve others. That work has grown more urgent as the United States faces a homelessness crisis that the source links to a deadly opioid crisis, the pandemic, and rising inflation and rents. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness’s most recent data cited in the report, more than 580,000 people in America were experiencing homelessness in 2020.

Bob Smietana, author of *Reorganized Religion*, told the outlet that people of faith are often at the forefront of the response. “Houses of worship are filled with folks who know the world is not the way it should be,” he said. “It’s not a world where everyone has what they need. And houses of worship know that their job is to help change that.” The report states that faith-based groups provide about 30% of emergency beds for single adults and families who are homeless, and that about two-thirds of the food pantries and distribution sites working with the Feeding America food bank network are faith-based.

Faith-based responses also extend beyond shelters and food, according to the report, including tiny home villages, rental assistance, mortgage funds, and affordable housing built on congregational property. Smietana said such groups often have religious teaching that calls them to help their neighbors, organized volunteers and donors, and buildings or properties that can offer shelter and other services.

The outlet profiled three organizations in the United States. The first is IKAR, a Los Angeles Jewish congregation that had held its religious events on rented property for 19 years before purchasing a parcel of land in west L.A. five years ago. Brooke Wirtschafter, IKAR’s director of community organizing, said the congregation concluded that the greatest humanitarian need in Los Angeles was the housing and homelessness crisis. The report notes that nearly 42,000 unhoused individuals experienced homelessness on any given night in the city, based on a 2022 count. IKAR is working with an affordable housing developer to build 55 permanent supportive housing units for seniors on its land, with occupancy expected to begin in early 2027.

To make the project possible, the congregation first pushed local lawmakers to reduce costly city parking requirements for newly built houses of worship developing affordable housing on their properties. The report says the new law has allowed other religious institutions in Los Angeles to consider similar projects. IKAR’s work also includes a 2017 partnership with Safe Parking LA, which provides safe parking lots where unhoused people living in their cars can spend the night. Wirtschafter said the program helped congregants build relationships with neighbors experiencing homelessness. “It was a really impactful program for our community because it helped our folks get to know more intimately what the stories and experiences of people who are unhoused are really like.”

Wirtschafter also described the city’s housing system in critical terms. “The system is broken and poorly designed,” she said. According to the report, IKAR’s worshippers believe it is their responsibility to help address the issue by providing services, advocating for more effective housing policy, and working to build affordable housing wherever possible. The report presents this as the congregation’s view and does not independently assess the city’s policies. Its connection to the stranger in need reflects the same spirit of hospitality (Matthew 25:35).

The second organization is Heaven’s Healing Hands in Arizona, which the report says began with 200 McDonald’s sandwiches. In 2017, Guy and Joanne Penns began distributing sandwiches and water bottles to their neighborhood’s growing unhoused population after service at Kingdom of the Valley Christian Church in Phoenix, where they were ministers. The couple soon concluded that, given Arizona’s extreme heat and rising homelessness, people needed more than weekly food distribution. “It was like putting a BandAid on a gunshot wound,” Guy Penns said. The couple then launched Heaven’s Healing Hands, a local nonprofit that serves veterans and people experiencing homelessness with food, clothing, medical treatment, and personal hygiene services, including haircuts and showers. According to the report, more than 20 collaborators, including Dr. Jeannine Hinds of TinyHouseDoc, a mobile healthcare unit, have joined to address housing, legal, medical, mental health, and substance abuse needs in the community.

Source: Read the original report