Your impact! It matters!
July 23, 2025
Each mom and child facing homelessness has their own story – sometimes, it is a story of a sudden spiral into homelessness. Other times, it is a long and winding road full of switchbacks and steep inclines that leaves a trail of grief.
One of the deep joys I experience is watching how Neighboring Volunteers from local Christian faith communities emerge, in God’s perfect timing, for each particular family. Click here for some examples.
Neighboring Volunteers and affordable housing are the two linchpins to Bridge of Hope’s approach to ending family homelessness.
In 2023, our board outlined a bold 3-year plan with seven housing strategies to create stronger solutions for families facing homelessness to find housing more quickly.
Today, we are seeing those strategies create a significant impact! Our fiscal year 2024-25 network-wide average for the time it takes to house families dropped to 50 days, our best yet since the pandemic and the growing affordable housing crisis. Across the network, we’ve heard success stories about landlord partnerships and housing strategies like master leasing and property ownership that have enabled families to locate housing quickly. In some cases, these strategies have helped families with extremely high barriers gain access to housing they otherwise would not have been able to rent.
This past fiscal year, we served a record number of moms (and some dads too) and children, as we strive to meet the increased calls for help.
We could not do this without an expanding number of landlord partners, more groups of Neighboring Volunteers (6-10 people) from a diverse range of church partners and you! You matter! Your church matters!
Today, over 100 golfers are ending homelessness for more families at the Bridge of Hope Golf Classic. Others of you are Neighboring, providing affordable landlord partnerships and so much more.
In these warm days of summer, I’m grateful for our combined effort in ending family homelessness, in a growing network of locations across the U.S.
May the neighboring movement continue to grow to impact more moms and children!
With warm, summer blessings,
Edith Yoder
Chief Executive Officer
MAKING ROOM CAMPAIGN UPDATE:
You continue to “Make Room” for families facing homelessness! I’m delighted to share that we are now at 87% of our $8.4 million Making Room Campaign goal, with the intent to complete the campaign in early 2026.
MID-YEAR MERCY: WHAT ARE YOU CARRYING?
As the year’s midpoint arrives, we’re invited to pause, reflect, and gently ask: What are we carrying, and what can we release? Click here to read more.