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Mission StatementHope Ministries seeks to transform hearts, minds and lives by engaging families and individuals in a Christ-centered, grace-based process of examining their current realities, envisioning their future possibilities, and enabling action to achieve their desired futures.
HistoryHope Ministries was initially founded as Hope Rescue Mission in 1954 by Tobe E. Schmucker under the direction of the Mennonite Board of Missions in a former hotel and tavern in downtown South Bend. Hope’s initial mission was to shelter, feed and minister to homeless men, but within a year Hope began serving homeless women and families as well.
In the late 1990’s Hope’s board and staff, along with a group of community leaders, examined the state of homelessness in St. Joseph County and gaps in the community’s services. This led to a decision by Hope’s board to open a second facility in 2005, the Family Life Center, to serve homeless women and families. The original Michigan Street now primarily provides space for chapel services and a community kitchen, where nearly 300 meals are served every day. The Family Life Center provides housing for 18 families (including married couples and single fathers), 16 single women and 40 single men.
VisionHope envisions a community in which every adult and child has access to the love, support and resources they need to be healthy mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. In the next three years Hope is seeking to expand its capacity to realize this vision in three main areas:
Transforming the organizational culture to promote internal transformation: Over the past two years, Hope has been working with Grace Network International to implement its “Grace Model.” This model is focused on creating a grace-based environment of Christ-like accountability that helps people change their internal motivations and values, leading to lasting changes in their behaviors.
Strengthening services to families: Homelessness and poverty are cyclical issues – they tend to be repeated from generation to generation. With the Family Life Center, the Grace Model, and the Hope4Kids early childhood development program, Hope is uniquely positioned and qualified to help homeless families break this cycle.
Meeting the needs of under-served populations in the community: Hope has chosen to focus on expanding services to two important groups that are under-served in this community:
Families: Hope is working to expand its capacity to serve more residents in-house by constructing an additional six family apartments, and is also exploring opportunities to provide services to families not living at Hope.
The Chronically Homeless: Numerous individuals in the community are dealing with significant substance abuse and/or mental health issues that keep them from entering residential programs like Hope and others in the community. Hope is actively working with the Continuum of Care Task Force to investigate the feasibility of a “low-demand” shelter in the community. Such a facility would keep these individuals off the streets and serve as a gateway to more intensive services over time. |
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| Last Updated on Tuesday, 09 February 2010 12:16 |
