Hope House Ministries Inc

The mission of Hope House is to alleviate physical and spiritual poverty through gospel restoration. We seek to provide opportunities for our neighbors in Bowling Green and the surrounding area to use the skills and talents God has given them to improve their situations and live fulfilling lives as loving parents and spouses, productive employees, contributing members of society, and generous individuals who bless others. Ultimately, our goal is to help lower the poverty rate in Bowling Green one person at a time.

Hope House focuses on long-term development as our primary strategy for poverty alleviation. We offer development classes to provide job skills and financial management training. For those who graduate Faith & Finances, our financial management class, we offer a car purchasing program with no-interest financing and income-based payments. As transportation is a major roadblock that keeps many people in our community from securing employment, we also offer a shuttle that travels to two industrial centers in Bowling Green for all shifts, six days a week. One of our most extensive programs is a 12-month, gospel-centered addiction recovery program for men called Program Living. Program Living provides a phased approach to addiction recovery and focuses on the mental, physical, spiritual and emotional development of our residents. Men in the program participate in our development classes, as well as many other educational courses and Bible study; they participate in Crossfit classes throughout the week and complete a 5K race during their year with us; they attend a local church for Sunday service and weekly Bible studies; and they receive counseling from our on-site Program Living Counseling Coordinator and other local counselors. We will soon launch Program Living for Women, which will be similarly structured to Program Living for Men. Our Christmas program, Affordable Christmas, allows parents to purchase gifts for their children at one-tenth of the retail value, wrap them on-site, and give the gifts to their children on Christmas day; providing an opportunity for parents to provide for their own families.

Hope House has countless success stories to tell of individuals who completed one or many of our programs and experienced restoration in their lives as they took steps toward overcoming poverty. You can read some of these stories at www.hopehousebg.com/why. With ten years of experience working to alleviate poverty in our community, our team at Hope House is well-equipped to continue this work and grow the ministries of Hope House to reach more neighbors in need. As we have grown tremendously in the last few years, we will be building a larger ministry center to house the majority of our services this year, as well as a new 27-bed facility to house Program Living for Women. We have already planned to hire additional staff and increase our operating budget to accommodate the additional expenses that will come with expanding our ministries.

Since Hope House began in 2009, our ministries have grown from simply providing food, clothing, and financial assistance to our neighbors, to walking with them through the process of poverty alleviation and gospel restoration to see their lives fully transformed. As previously described, Hope House comes alongside our neighbors through a variety of classes and programs, which all have the goal of helping individuals secure employment and ultimately overcome poverty. Since we began providing development classes in 2012, 426 individuals have graduated from these classes, which provide them with the knowledge, training, and support necessary to secure employment and manage their finances. Additionally, since we launched Program Living for Men in 2015, we have graduated 16 men from the 12-month program and seen them released from addiction and restored in their relationships with spouses and families. Last year, 862 children received Christmas gifts from their parents as a result of Affordable Christmas. Looking forward, we're excited to launch Program Living for Women in the coming year, as well as a new ministry center to allow for continued growth of our existing ministries. Program Living for Women will house up to 27 women at a time who are struggling with addiction, incarceration, and for many, abusive situations. We're hopeful for the lives that will be restored through our existing programs, as well as Program Living for Women, in the years to come.