Endorsements

Book endorsements for Making Housing Happen: Faith Based Affordable Housing Models

"Making Housing Happen captures the diversity of faithful approaches to addressing the wide range of housing needs in our nation. Jill's brings these stories together with a policy lens and a theological narrative that is unparalleled. Before reading the book, I struggled with how to address the deep wounds of the housing crisis in a faithful way. After reading the book, I was moved and inspired to work with communities of faith to find solutions to homelessness. Making Housing Happen is an incredible resource and reference tool for me as I mobilize congregations to create and advocate for housing with dignity in my community. It's stories and examples are full of inspiration, hard-earned wisdom and hope."

Allison Johnson,
Congregational Partnership Organizer Plymouth Church Neighborhood Foundation
Minneapolis, MN April 2012

"Making Housing Happen gives students inspiring examples of how they can participate in making a difference in the lives of people throughout the community. It is real, practical, and personal. Making Housing Happen brings the dry statistics of America's affordable housing crisis to life with moving stories of struggle and triumph."

Dr. Russell James III,
Assistant Professor, Department of Housing & Consumer Economics, University of Georgia

"Shook and her colleagues powerfully blend inspiration and practical reality, weaving together the need for affordable housing, the teachings of the prophetic tradition, and the tangible accomplishments of churches and other faith-based organizations around the country . . . This book should be read by any person of faith ready to put that faith into practice."

Alan Mallach
Senior Fellow of the National Housing Institute and Brookings Institution

"Making Housing Happen brings hope and delivers it to the non-expert in a clear, digestible, and comprehensive way. Drawing on the experience of housing providers all over the country, Shook blends inspiration and practicality in just the right proportions."

Tim Iglesias
University of San Francisco School of Law

"An important book on an urgent topic. May the church answer this powerful call to action."

Ronald J. Sider
President, Evangelicals for Social Action

"Jill Shook has collected wise and astute commentary from the experts in the field of housing. Together they offer seldom considered theological and biblical insights that we need to motivate us to address a crisis in America. Church people need to do something about this crisis and this book will aid them immensely if they are willing to take up the challenge outlined in these pages."

Tony Campolo, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus, Eastern University, St. Davids, PA


This is the best book I’ve read on housing for years, probably since Bowerly’s classic The Poor House (Southern Illinois University Press).  The issues emerge with clarity. The amazing range of resources and documentation is superb.  Above all, the theological vision comes with power and passion.  Somehow Shook has gotten some of the most experienced people in the whole urban world to share their practical and inspiring stories in successive chapters, making it a must read for anyone serving our Lord in cities today. 

Ray Bakke
International Urban Associates, Chicago, IL

“The lack of affordable housing is one of the major contributing factors to poverty in the U.S.
Making Housing Happen collects the stories of diverse local faith-based programs that are making a difference in their communities. I commend it to all Christians looking for ways to work at improving the conditions of people in poverty – which should be all Christians.” 

Jim Wallis
Editor-in-Chief of Sojourners magazine

Making Housing Happen is an excellent and greatly needed text! It is a book that will be most welcome in many circles of readers who care about the housing crisis in America.Besides providing a solid historical, theological, and human rights rationale for affordable housing, what makes this book special is its comprehensive and paradigmatic (models) of faith-based and church oriented approaches for a housing ministry. Its in-depth faith-filled stories and testimonies of successful housing ministries should prove inspirational, instructive, and challenging to all Congregations endeavoring to "Seek the Peace of the City" (Jer.29:7).

Rev. Eldin Villafane, Ph.D.
Professor of Christian Social Ethics, Center for Urban Ministerial Education (CUME),
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Boston, MA 

An invitation to imagine how the provision of safe, affordable, energy-efficient, and human-scale housing might be liberated from the dictatorship of market forces to serve as a sign of God's new order. I can think of few issues more urgent, and few books which interpret it with such theological wisdom.

Richard Slimbach
Azusa Pacific University

"In this volume, Jill Shook brings together information about the breadth and severity of our national shortage of affordable housing with the biblical themes and mandates that make this very much the church's business.  A wealth of contributors of diverse talents and broad experience share the stories of successful, church-based projects to provide alternatives, along with the insights gained therein.  It reminds one of the Johannine admonition, "Let us love not in words on the tongue, but in deed and truth."

Sondra Wheeler
Martha Ashby Carr Professor of Christian Ethics
Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington, D.C.

Most Americans, particularly those in the religious sector, would be deeply moved to learn that 1.37 million American children are homeless.  It is indeed a vulgar society that does not safeguard its young. Coming  straight from the Word of life, Jill Shook shakes the foundations of our lives in "Making Housing Happen," a work that moves from description of the problem to prescription for the problem.  Ours is not a lack of know-how so much as a lack of will.   if we will it, the Creator will breathe into the clay of commitment the wherewithal to make a garden existence.  Jill Shook invites us to inhale.

Rev. Cecil L. "Chip" Murray
Minister Emeritus of First A.M.E. Church, Los Angeles
Tanzy Chair of Christian Ethics at the University of Southern California