28 January 2012

By Patrick Butler | ResonateNews.com
 
TIJUANA DEL MAR, Mexico — Sustainable change in worldwide communities through recognition of the true nature of poverty was the major theme of the four-day International Homes of Hope conference here. The U.S.-based charity has constructed and given away more than 3,500 homes in 12 nations during the past 20 years.

Representatives from 10 nations, mostly — but not all — Spanish speaking, heard new strategies in the offing to "truly transform" communities. 

At the moment, most of the small homes have been built in Mexico for “working poor” landowners who cannot afford to build houses on their properties after paying taxes and making land payments. Homes of Hope has largely drawn on the efforts of short-term volunteers who pay to travel and then build the homes for these low-income families. 

But even though the work of Homes is fulfilling and “a blessing,” conference speaker Drew Smith said, most Americans erroneously define poverty in material terms, and can actually hinder progress. Drawing on the work of economist Brian Fikkert and Stephan Corbett and their book “When Helping Hurts,” Smith challenged and cautioned conference-goers to reconsider what truly constitutes poverty as the mulit-million dollar budgeted charity expands into more countries, providing shelter.  “Broken relationships, not money, makes one impoverished,” said Smith, a former businessman and self-described social entrepreneur. “Instead of helping, it hurts individuals if we inadvertently communicate that people with more material things are somehow superior to those with less," Smith said. "There is a type of 'God-complex' that can come along with those thinking they're coming to 'save poor people' when in fact, God has given all people the tools to solve their own problems. Those tools just need to be revealed to them.”

In a 2011 interview with ResonateNews.com Fikkert said “If we misdiagnose the problem, our efforts,” to help the poor “might hurt them.” The core of world problems are broken relationships with God and each other.

 At a meeting in Tyler, Texas of phiantrophists and ministry leaders,   
Fikkert cited a recent World Bank survey asking people living in poverty how they characterized their conditions. A Yale-educated economist, Fikkert said most of the world's poor think of poverty in terms more likely to be defined by a psychologist rather than an economist.

 

A Moldovan woman responded to the survey saying, “We are like garbage that everyone wants to get rid of,” while a Latvian woman described “a sense of low self-esteem.”

 

   “You can't solve this with money,” Fikkert said, referring to what he called people's broken relationship with God and not understanding their intrinsic value. “Material poverty is rooted in things far more profound.” 

Homes of Hope conference speaker Vincent Leone, a solution consultant with Dallas-based First Rate corporation, said, “What I am gathering from hearing you all, is that if true poverty is about perspective and not materials, Homes of Hope is not just about simply building a home and giving it away; this organization has an opportunity and a responsibility to be involved in the spiritual transformation of an individual, a family, a village, town or community.”

Smith said, “In his book, 'Walking With the Poor' Bryan Meyers tells us that poverty is a result of relationships that do not work, that are not just, that are not for life, that are not harmonious or enjoyable.' Until we embrace these concepts, and realize we can be just as poor, or more as the anyone else, our attempts to help the 'materially poor' are likely to hurt them – and ourselves.”

Visit the Web at http://ywamsandiegobaja.org/homes-of-hope/ for more information.

ResonateNews.com Assistant Editor Raymond Billy contributed to this report.

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