Author’s Note: This article continues a series deeply influenced by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert’s work, especially When Helping Hurts, Becoming Whole, and A Field Guide to Becoming Whole [1] . What follows is my own reflection on how those themes apply to reaching people experiencing poverty and homelessness at the Medford Gospel Mission.
In the first four articles, we examined three root causes of poverty.
First, we considered false gods and erroneous stories of change. Every person lives by some story of what will save them, satisfy them, and make life whole. When we trust created things to do what only God can do, those false gods shape our desires and decisions.
Second, we considered broken people. Sin has fractured our relationships with God, self, others, and creation. That brokenness is not unique to people experiencing homelessness. It is the universal human condition.
Third, we considered destructive formative practices. People are shaped not only by what they believe, but also by what they repeatedly do. Habits and routines form us over time, either toward wholeness or toward deeper bondage.
Taken together, these roots remind us that poverty is never merely a lack of material things. It reaches into what we worship, what we believe, who we are, and how we live.
People are also shaped by the systems around them, and that brings us to the next root cause of poverty: broken systems [4].
What Are Broken Systems?
Systems are the structures, institutions, policies, relationships, expectations, and patterns of community life that shape what is possible for people.
They include families, neighborhoods, schools, churches, businesses, courts, social services, housing markets, government programs, and economic structures. Some are formal and written. Others are informal and simply assumed.
Some systems are life-giving. Others are unjust, confusing, or destructive.
A broken system is any system that works against wholeness.
Biblically, wholeness is restored relationship with God that overflows into relationships with self, others, and creation (2 Corinthians 5:18–19; Colossians 1:19–20; Romans 8:20–23) [3]. A system is broken when its policies, incentives, assumptions, or practices hinder that restoration.
This matters because poverty is never only an individual problem. People make real choices, and those choices matter. But people also live inside families, communities, economies, and institutions that shape their opportunities, habits, expectations, and hope.
If we ignore personal responsibility, we will misunderstand poverty. And if we ignore broken systems, we will misunderstand poverty too.
Scripture speaks honestly about personal sin, foolishness, laziness, idolatry, deception, and destructive choices. It also speaks clearly about oppression, dishonesty, favoritism, corrupt rulers, predatory practices, and systems that crush the vulnerable.
Broken people build broken systems, and broken systems shape broken people. The two are deeply tangled. This is one reason homelessness is so complicated.
A person may arrive at the Mission carrying the consequences of personal sin. That same person may also be carrying wounds caused by abuse, trauma, family dysfunction, addiction in the home, unstable housing, poor schools, criminal history, predatory relationships, broken health systems, or misguided systems of help.
Sometimes a person has sinned. Sometimes a person has been sinned against. Often, both are true. And often, those realities have been reinforced by systems that were supposed to help.
That is why attacking the root of broken systems requires wisdom.
It takes more than changing public policy, increasing government funding, expanding services, or creating new programs. Those things may have a place. But we must also admit the truth:
Systems cannot save.
That is one of the great false stories of our age. We are often told that if we design the right program, pass the right policy, or fund the right institutions, human brokenness will finally be solved.
The Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness is an obvious example of this.
The books (When Helping Hurts, Becoming Whole) do not directly evaluate Housing First. However, their framework raises an important question whenever housing is treated as the primary diagnosis and outcome: does it address the whole person and the deeper causes of material poverty?
At the turn of the century, communities across the country were encouraged to create plans to end homelessness within a decade [2]. Jackson County adopted its own Ten-Year Plan in June 2009 [3]. The promise was bold: with coordinated services, expanded housing, Housing First policies, and sufficient funding, homelessness could be brought to an end [2][3].
But the years passed, and homelessness did not end. In my view, although plans have been revised and updated, most of the underlying assumptions have remained substantially the same. Now, many years later, our community and communities across the nation are still applying many of the same broken assumptions to the problem of homelessness.
And this matters because the system does not only shape policies and programs. It also shapes people.
In my work, I have encountered many people experiencing homelessness who have come to believe that their deepest problem is the lack of housing.
I have heard this countless times over the years while working with men and women experiencing homelessness. They look past addiction, broken relationships, destructive habits, isolation, lack of work, and spiritual disconnection. They delay addressing those deeper issues because it has been ingrained in them that their real problem is simply the lack of housing.
So they wait.
They wait for housing before addressing the roots. They wait for an apartment before pursuing healing. They wait for a change in circumstance before pursuing a change in life.
But that is an erroneous story of change.
It teaches people to look past the deeper roots of poverty and place their hope in a system that cannot save. Housing may change a person’s circumstances, and that matters. But housing cannot restore a person’s relationship with God, self, others, and creation.
It cannot make someone whole.
That is why compassion must be deeper than material help.
Biblical compassion does more than provide resources. It calls people toward life (John 10:10). It does not merely accommodate brokenness. It walks patiently with people toward restoration, bearing burdens with both gentleness and truth (John 1:14; Galatians 6:1–2; Ephesians 4:15).
But this is not only a critique of systems outside the Medford Gospel Mission. It is also a warning to us.
Every system is broken this side of glory, including the systems we build at the Mission. That may sound strange coming from someone who wants people to support and believe in the Mission’s work. But the gospel frees us to tell the truth.
No system can save. Only God can.
Even a system with biblical goals can be distorted by pride, fear, control, impatience, shame, or mistaken assumptions about what people need.
We can see this danger in our own work. A rule created to encourage responsibility can become rigid and fail to account for a person’s circumstances. A program requirement intended to promote growth can become a box to check rather than an opportunity for relationship. Our desire for order can become control. Our desire for measurable results can cause us to value visible progress more than patient faithfulness. Even our efforts to help can unintentionally communicate that staff members are the experts and program participants are merely problems to be managed.
The Mission is a ministry made up of broken people, serving broken people, in a broken world.
Because that is true, we continually examine not only the people we serve, but also the systems through which we serve them. Are our policies and practices helping people move toward wholeness in relationship with God, self, others, and creation? Are they cultivating responsibility, dignity, belonging, and agency? Or are they sometimes reinforcing dependency, shame, isolation, fear, or powerlessness?
We love success stories, and we share them often. They encourage us and remind us that God is at work. But if we are not careful, even good stories can become another way of reducing people.
We reduce people to statistics when the numbers become more important than the person.
We reduce people to problems when we see only what needs to be fixed.
And we reduce people to success stories when we value them mainly because their story encourages supporters, validates our system, or demonstrates that the Mission is making an impact.
But people are more than numbers, problems, or stories we tell. They are image bearers of God (Genesis 1:26–27; James 3:9). They are still in process. Their dignity does not depend on how broken they have been or how inspiring their story has become.
That is why the way we order life together at the Mission matters.
Our Relational Restoration Process is not merely a schedule, curriculum, or list of requirements. It is a way of ordering community life around the belief that people were made for restored relationship with God, themselves, others, and creation.
Our program participants are not simply given a bed, meals, and a list of things to do. They are invited into a new way of life.
They worship. They study Scripture. They attend micro-courses. They practice honesty. They serve and work. They meet with staff. They build relationships with local churches. They learn responsibility through ordinary daily life (Genesis 2:15; Ephesians 4:28; 2 Thessalonians 3:10–12).
They are known by name. They are challenged when needed. They are encouraged when weary. They are given room to grow.
That structure is not meant to control people. It is meant to form people.
A good system supports what is true about human beings. People are not machines, statistics, economic units, or problems to be managed. They are image bearers of God, created for worship, relationship, responsibility, work, and community.
When systems forget that, they become dehumanizing.
Even compassionate systems can become dehumanizing when they separate help from relationship. We can feed someone without knowing them. We can house someone without restoring them. We can provide resources without calling forth responsibility. We can offer services while leaving someone alone.
Biblical restoration requires more. It requires proximity, patience, truth, love, and the local church.
This is hard work.
It is easier to hand someone a resource than to walk with them through restoration. It is easier to count meals, beds, visits, and dollars than to measure trust rebuilt, habits changed, relationships reconciled, churches engaged, and hope restored.
But if we are going to attack the roots of poverty, we must be willing to do the deeper work.
Broken systems will not be healed by simplistic answers. They will not be healed by blaming individuals alone, blaming society alone, or trusting money, programs, housing, treatment, or policy alone.
They begin to be healed as broken people, broken practices, and broken systems are brought under the restoring lordship of Jesus Christ.
That is the hope we carry.
Jesus does not merely save isolated souls while leaving the rest of life untouched. He is making all things new (2 Corinthians 5:17; Revelation 21:5). He reconciles us to God, makes us new people, teaches us new practices, gathers us into a new community, and sends us into the world to bear witness to his renewing work.
So when we talk about broken systems, we do not do so with despair. We do so with hope.
The gospel gives us a better story of change than either individualism or institutionalism can offer. Individualism says, “People just need to make better choices.” Institutionalism says, “People just need better systems.”
The gospel tells the truth about both.
People need new hearts. People need restored relationships. People need wise and just communities. People need practices that form them toward wholeness. People need systems that support human dignity rather than work against it. Most of all, people need Jesus Christ.
At the Medford Gospel Mission, we are not trying to create a perfect system. We cannot. But we are seeking to build a faithful one: a community of restoration where people are treated with dignity, called to responsibility, surrounded by truth and grace, connected to the local church, and invited into the restoring work of God.
That is how we attack the root of broken systems. Not by pretending systems do not matter. Not by trusting systems to save. But by shaping our systems around what God says is true about people.
In the next article, we will examine the final root cause of poverty: demonic forces [4]. Poverty is not only material, personal, habitual, or systemic. It is also spiritual. We have an enemy who delights in bondage, despair, shame, and destruction (John 10:10; Ephesians 6:12). But we also have a Savior who has overcome the powers of darkness and is bringing his people into the kingdom of light (Colossians 1:13–14).
Root Causes of Poverty
- False gods and erroneous stories of change
- Broken people
- Destructive formative practices
- Broken systems
- Demonic forces
Sources
[1] Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, When Helping Hurts, especially chapters 2–4; Brian Fikkert and Kelly M. Kapic, Becoming Whole, especially chapters 1–2, 7–10; and Brian Fikkert and Kelly M. Kapic, A Field Guide to Becoming Whole, especially chapters 1–2 and the sections addressing broken systems and broken people.
[2] National Low Income Housing Coalition, “Ten-Year Plans to End Homelessness”; U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, Opening Doors: Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness, released June 22, 2010.
[3] City of Medford, Homeless System Action Plan, April 2019, revised June 2020. The plan notes that Jackson County’s Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness was adopted by the Jackson County Board of Commissioners in June 2009. https://www.medfordoregon.gov/files/assets/public/v/1/planning/hcd/plans-policies/homeless-system-action-plan_final-rev-june-2020.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com
[4] Fikkert and Kapic, Becoming Whole, concluding design-principles discussion; and Fikkert and Kapic, A Field Guide to Becoming Whole, introduction and appendix, identifying five causes of material poverty: false gods and erroneous stories of change, destructive formative practices, broken systems, broken people, and demonic forces.
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