By Lloyd Mackey

HOW are Christians responding to the needs and desires of the homeless, those living below the poverty level and the ‘street people,’ in the apparently idyllic Okanagan Valley?

One initiative, Metro Church, is profiled in the story above.

Across the street from Metro is Kelowna Gospel Mission (KGM) – which, for close to three decades, has been offering such services as transitional housing for both men and women, addiction recovery programs and daily meals. A thrift store and a dental clinic help round out the program.

Most of Kelowna’s several dozen churches contribute volunteer time and funding, and government coffers help cover a lot of the housing costs.

But the services offered by KGM and Metro are not the only faith-based city core activities. The Salvation Army is in there with recovery programs; the Mennonite Central Committee has a thrift store – and the list goes on.

One thing both the Metro and KGM people recognize is that one cannot hope to lump all the ‘homeless’ or ‘street’ people into one big category and create a cookie-cutter need-meeting solution.

In Kelowna, one interesting aspect of urban ministry is the number of arts, crafts and busking people who work and, for all practical purposes, live outdoors near the lakeside parks especially during the summer and fall, providing some of the colour and entertainment that keep the city and lakeshore alive.

And there are the fruit pickers, who converge by the thousand on Okanagan orchards, then, in their leisure hours, find their way to the lake, downtown or both.

Part of Metro’s mission statement assumes the kind of flexibility needed to meet a range of needs. It includes declarations like “loving God . . . building personal trust . . . in an atmosphere of love . . . where judgment is left at the door.”

Indeed, Alfred Heinrichs would agree. He has been in Kelowna for just three years, in “semi-retirement” following years of program development and restorative justice work in such places as the Fraser Valley, Wichita, Kansas and Kitchener/Waterloo, Ontario.

The Heinrichs are part of First Mennonite Church, a small Kelowna congregation. They have a high regard for what Willow Park (a part of the other major Mennonite denomination, the Mennonite Brethren) are doing, as well as the activities of the more traditional mission approach of the KGM.

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But Alfred, drawing on his experience, as well as his advanced education in both theology and the social sciences, speaks of the need to “develop systems and to build models.”

What he means is that, rather than assuming simply that Christians can solve a problem by throwing the gospel and/or social assistance at is, people can sit down at a round table and talk it through.

Sometimes the talk takes a while. It involves identifying real needs and where the resources are, to meet that need.

Bartlett and  KGM director Randy Benson concur. The concept of ‘referral’ is endemic to their conversations. That means directing people who need help to the resources or agencies that best might provide it – even if it means literally or figuratively walking with them to the place of help, across the street, across town or wherever.

Heinrichs illustrates one possible approach to ‘model building.’ It involves several steps:

• The identifying of four or five people who cannot provide their own housing in the expensive housing rental market in Kelowna.

• Finding a house that suits their needs together.

• Checking out the financial resources available to them, from assistance or other sources.

• Finding people who can keep in touch with them, get them through the bumps of getting set up and helping them build relationships with their fellow tenants.

And he points out, too, that helping First Nations people keep links with reserve members who gravitate to the city provides some interesting activity for Christians who are used to conciliation or negotiating work.

Kelowna, like many mid-sized cities, is adjacent to sizeable – and sometimes wealthy – First Nations communities. In its case, the Westbank band, across the lake, is the community of interest.

Whatever the need, the Christian people involved in this story want to ensure that those with whom they are working come to understand the gospel and meet Jesus.

But they recognize that is, in many cases, a long term objective. Building trust and suspending judgment comes first and, in itself, results in met needs.

November 2007