Investing in Prevention K eeping people out of the crisis of need- ing your ministry is an investment. Den- nis Van Kampen, CEO of Mel Trotter Ministries in Grand Rapids, Michigan, believes prevention is important, especially for families. The first reason, he says, is the need to break the cycle of homelessness, since many older single people who are homeless experienced their first episodes of homelessness as children. In addi- tion, children who experience three or more episodes of homelessness between kindergarten and 12th grade have a 78 percent chance of not graduating high school. In addition, reaching out to people on the verge of homelessness is “a wonderful opportu- nity for the mission to engage with and partner with public schools.” Dennis has found that min- istry opportunities abound in this area, since the local rural school district asked them for help identifying and assisting families experiencing homelessness or at risk of becoming homeless. Dennis believes reaching the almost-homeless can be more effective since it’s not happening in an institution, and yet the ministry isn’t compro- mised—“We have found we can do the same kind of ministry we do in our mission…God calls us to go to Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. To prevent families and youth from becoming homeless, we need to go to them.” Reaching beyond the mission is also something major donors are asking for. Dennis says, “Even the most evangelically conservative donors are saying, ‘We have always given because you are a Christ-centered ministry doing good work. But you have got to start moving the needle on getting people out of homelessness and getting upstream to prevent it.’” Meeting Basic Needs T he way most ministries reach out to people at risk of becoming homeless is by providing food, clothes, and toiletries. As Samuel Watts, president of Mission Bon Accueil in Montréal, Quebec, puts it, “Poverty is the fertile soil that makes it possible to produce homeless- ness. So our mission is heavily invested in things like food security and language training. We run one of the largest free grocery stores in Canada, serving 15,000 people each month. We work with partners to teach new arrivals how to speak French (the language we speak in Montreal).” Similarly, people in Tucson, Arizona, who find themselves out of money to meet basic needs can receive help at Gospel Rescue Mission. Accord- ing to Community Ministries Director Suzanne 18 WWW.CITYGATENETWORK.ORG MAY/JUNE 2019 Reaching beyond the mission is also something major donors are asking for. Dennis says, “Even the most evangelically conservative donors are saying, ‘We have always given because you are a Christ­centered ministry doing good work. But you have got to start moving the needle on getting people out of homelessness and getting upstream to prevent it.’”