Hope House - Funding Initiative

FUNDING INITIATIVE

alleviating physical and spiritual poverty through gospel restoration

THIS IS MY STORY...

“In 2004, I received a 30 year sentence for methamphetamine and drug addiction, and I did six and half years in prison. For 40 years of my life, there was no hope. It was self-will run riot, drugs, and alcohol. That lifestyle has no hope. There’s no promise in it. There is death or prisons, and that’s about the only way out of that life.

Because of my drug addiction, my wife and I separated and divorced. Shortly after that, I was incarcerated. Around four years after I was released, she wished me a happy birthday on Facebook Messenger. Within two weeks we were reconciled, but I still had no direction. She knew I needed to build a foundation on Christ. I know that God put Hope House in my path. I graduated from Jobs for Life in 2014 and Faith & Finances shortly after that. The classes not only gave me direction, but they gave me the foundation to build my life on.

That foundation is Christ-centered, and it’s helped me to set attainable goals. It’s helped me to develop a relationship with Christ, and through Christ, with my wife and strengthen that relationship tremendously. My personal relationships with friends and work associates have grown because they’ve seen something different in me that they respect. My wife and I started attending church on a regular basis. We joined a small group and became involved in church activities and started serving within the church. We started to be a part of the church instead of just attending on Sunday morning. Two years ago, my wife and I along with six other couples were led to plant a church. It has been amazing to see God’s work through all of that.

In the seven years since I graduated from the classes at Hope House, I’ve worked about three jobs. I progressed from a construction job, to ironwork, to a maintenance position. I’m now lead maintenance where I work. Initially they didn’t hire felons. Now, some of the top positions in the factory are filled by people with a record, and we hire many from Hope House’s Program Living. I have had a chance to give back to my community and to Hope House. I feel really good about that and appreciate what Hope House has done for me.

If I had never come to Hope House and began my walk with Christ, I know my life would have been just like it had been for the previous 40 years. Nothing would have changed, and I would’ve gotten the same results. I would’ve been back in prison because the charges against me weren’t small things anymore. I had a record, and I had 18 years on the shelf. Now, my sentence is gone. I’ve gotten my rights restored, and I am a productive member of society and my community. My testimony shows God’s power to change people.”

STORY OF HOPE HOUSE

Hope House began as a traditionally-modeled Christian charity, with services like a food pantry, financial assistance, and a clothes closet. One day in 2010, neighbors from the West End Bowling Green community filled the lobby to receive what the organization would give. One neighbor voiced a feeling that gave birth to a new direction for Hope House. Waiting in the line to receive food, he said, “I feel like we’re a bunch of cattle.” An image-bearer of God felt like livestock–stripped of dignity. That’s when we knew something had to change.

We began to have conversations with our neighbors about the issues they saw in their neighborhood and how we could walk alongside them to effect lasting change. We were no longer satisfied with meeting physical needs without opportunities to build relationships and see long-term transformation, and neither were our neighbors. People experiencing poverty often explain their situation not in physical terms, as we often do, but in emotional terms, like a feeling of hopelessness or worthlessness. We knew we had to get to the heart of the issue.

Our Mission

We hope this project will help repair relationships, break cycles of poverty, and ultimately, lead people to faith in Jesus. Our goal is to provide long-term, development programs in our neighbors’ backyard to help them experience whole-life transformation through gospel restoration.

This project will be a large addition to our existing ministry areas of faith-based education, transportation, workforce development, addiction recovery, and financial empowerment; it will allow us to add transitional housing to that list.

HOW WE SERVE

Existing Programs

Faith-Based Education

• Jobs for Life: faith-based class teaching Biblical principles and practical skills for employment

• Faith & Finances: faith-based class teaching Biblical principles and practical skills for financial management

• 24/7 Dad: faith-based class teaching fathers to be involved, responsible, and committed through Biblical parenting Transportation

• Ready to Work Shuttle: provides affordable transportation for employees at over 30 companies

• Driver Ready Program: car purchasing program at income-based payments with no-interest financing for Faith & Finances graduates

Workforce Development

• New Leaf: contract-based, sub-assembly, service, maintenance and repair work for Program Living residents and Jobs for Life participants

Financial Empowerment

• Community Store: neighborhood thrift store providing jobs and affordable household items

• Advocacy Program: case management to help develop a plan for people experiencing material poverty

Addiction Recovery

• Program Living: 12-month, gospelcentered, residential addiction recovery programs for men and women

MOVING FORWARD

Since then, Hope House has grown to provide faith-based education, transportation, workforce development, addiction recovery, and financial empowerment programs with the mission to alleviate physical and spiritual poverty through gospel restoration. As a 14-year-old organization, our work has only begun. As our city grows in number, the needs of our neighbors grow, and we must grow too. We have a vision to expand our current ministries to include counseling, family visitation, medical services, more classes, and affordable and transitional housing.

We believe that God can break the cycle of poverty and transform our neighbors’ lives, and he has invited us to be a part of this Kingdom work. The root of poverty lies in broken relationships with others, with ourselves, with creation, and most importantly, with God. When we walk with a person through the process of restoring his or her relationship with God, we inevitably witness the restoration of relationships with family members; the restoration of that person’s dignity, value, and self-worth; and we are given the opportunity to help them break the cycle of material poverty by overcoming addiction, escaping homelessness, securing employment, gaining financial stability, becoming a better parent, and so much more.

EXPANDED REACH

Future Programs to be Housed in New Buildings:

As Hope House has grown and we’ve built relationships with more of our neighbors in West End Bowling Green, more opportunities to help our neighbors overcome poverty have become apparent. We have strived to be an organization that emphasizes holistic transformation, not short-term solutions. The new services we will be able to provide through these new facilities are another step in the direction of our mission: to alleviate physical and spiritual poverty through gospel restoration.

GROWTH

PLAN

PHASE 1

Townhomes

After-Care Townhomes: The addition of our 16 after-care, transitional townhomes will provide a buffer for graduates to settle into everyday life, maintain sobriety in a safe space, and find affordable, permanent housing for their futures.

PHASE 2 Ministry Center

• Counseling: Our new ministry center will provide the space to extend our current counseling service to our neighbors who are not in Program Living.

• Medical Services: Our new center will also have a space designated to provide basic medical and referral services for our neighbors.

• Classes: This building will include designated space for classes, like Jobs for Life, Faith & Finances, and parenting classes. Additionally, we plan to use this classroom space for additional services like a computer lab.

• Family Visitation: Many of our Program Living residents work toward regaining visitation or custody of children while in the program. Our new ministry center will include two family visitation rooms to serve as a supervised visitation and neutral exchange center for parents working toward regaining custody and visitation rights with their children. These rooms will be open to both Program Living residents and families in the community who need a place for supervised visitation.

• Playroom: We will also have a playroom to provide a safe and fun environment for children when they come for visitation with a parent. Participants of our programs often face roadblocks with childcare that hinder them from participating in classes outside of school hours. This room will give us a space for childcare when class participants have to bring their children with them.

PHASE 3

Tiny Homes

Tiny Home Transitional Housing: The last phase of this project will be the construction of 24 tiny homes to serve as affordable, transitional housing for participants of our programs and neighbors experiencing homelessness.

Our community has long lacked affordable and transitional housing to help people gain stability and rebuild their lives after crises. As Bowling Green continues to grow, this need grows with it. These tiny homes will provide affordable, transitional housing to promote a person’s inherent dignity and worth, as we walk with them through the rebuilding process. Individuals, couples, and small families seeking to rebuild their lives will be provided community, protection, stability, and a place to recover from mental and emotional exhaustion. Tiny home residents will receive supportive services through our ministry center to help them move forward.

The tiny homes will be grouped in pods with mission houses as their anchors. An individual or couple will live in each mission house to provide support to the surrounding tiny home residents. Businesses, church groups, and individuals can sponsor and help construct one or more of the tiny homes. This model for an affordable transitional housing community can be reproduced in the future to provide more housing in other areas of need throughout West End Bowling Green and the rest of the city.

SITE PLAN

PROPOSED TOWNHOMES

PROPOSED TINY HOMES

stewardship through partnership

Hope House is working with Third Lens Ministries, a nonprofit organization which manages the design-build process in order to ensure a successful building project for ministries.

We have received $1 million from a private, local family foundation to help us begin construction as soon as possible.

Keystone Partners, LLC and Bowling Green Realty have donated their services on this project, greatly lowering the cost.

Because of these partners, this project will move forward with the seal of approval from industry professionals, mitigating the risk of financial misuse, serious delays, and permitting issues.

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