Disrupting Homelessness: Alternative Christian Approaches (Prisms)

Disrupting Homelessness unmasks the futile assumptions of our present approaches to homelessness and suggests ways in which Christians and Christian communities can create a prophetic social movement to end poverty and homelessness.

The American dream, as conveyed by the media, includes owning a home. Increasingly, people are homeless or precariously housed because of joblessness, foreclosure, or dislocation. Ecclesial responses to homelessness and housing vary. Some Christian organizations focus on fixing the person and the behaviors that contribute to homelessness. Others promote home ownership for low-income households.

Employing a disruptive Christian ethics, Laura Stivers criticizes both approaches, outlines an advocacy approach for churches to address the multiple causes of homelessness, and calls us to make a home for all in God's just and compassionate community.