NEARLY ALL OF us have encountered a person on the street who is unhoused and asking for help. Perhaps we have felt conflicted about how to respond: Should we give them cash? Should we offer to pay for a meal instead? Will the cash we give cause further harm through the purchase of alcohol or drugs? It can be difficult to know how to engage responsibly at the personal or the policy level with the growing problem of homelessness in the U.S.
Enter Kevin Nye’s illuminating book, Grace Can Lead Us Home: A Christian Call to End Homelessness. Nye offers a new lens through which to view homelessness and, more importantly, our neighbors experiencing homelessness. For him, this is not just another justice issue, but rather his calling: He has devoted much of his adult life to working with unhoused people in Los Angeles.
Grace Can Lead Us Home explains the macro-level causes of homelessness and contributing factors. And it reveals micro-level approaches to engaging with our unhoused neighbors in a way that centers our mutual need for connection and belonging. He discusses the lack of affordable housing that drives this crisis; the inadequate mental health support available to unhoused people; and the surprising truth about substance abuse and addiction affecting homeless populations.
Nye frames these discussions around his Christian faith. The conclusions and the data he shares are often startling, revealing the myths we have internalized about our unhoused neighbors. One such myth is that housing support should only be offered to those who are sober and/or have committed to mental health treatment. Nye opposes this approach, advocating instead for a “housing first” model. He writes, “Housing itself is treatment. ... Housing provides stability whereby people with other barriers and vulnerabilities can work on them more effectively.” A merit-based model for providing housing is the opposite of God’s given grace, argues Nye. We meet people where they are and not where we wish they would be, just as God meets us.
Grace Can Lead Us Home is also a profoundly biblical book that presents fresh perspectives on well-known passages and parables. While we are tempted toward fear and scarcity, Nye reminds us that we serve a God of abundance who turned water into wine (and the good wine, at that!), and whose ministry on earth was full of “extraordinary provision.” Most of all, readers will be engaged by stories of friendship, community, and celebration with people experiencing homelessness. In a particularly moving story, Nye talks about the yearly “Everyone Deserves a Party” celebration at his former place of work, The Center. Whereas most nonprofits have banquets and celebrations only for donors and board members, The Center holds a yearly banquet for their unhoused neighbors. It is a party for the poor, reminiscent of Jesus’ parable of the banquet where all the people on the margins are invited.
Nye reminds us that in Matthew 25, Jesus tells us that when we care for and acknowledge our shared humanity with people experiencing homelessness, we are caring for him. Grace Can Lead Us Home offers story after story of meeting Christ “in tents, shelters, and drop-in centers.” All are as beautiful as they are heartbreaking, and you will be changed by them.
Karen González is a speaker, writer, and immigrant advocate who lives in Baltimore. She is the author of Beyond Welcome: Centering Immigrants in our Christian Response to Immigration.
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