Causeway is a Christ-focused initiative of The Salvation Army. It is committed to living out the Gospel of Jesus Christ by intentionally connecting members of the local church with people who were recently homeless but are beginning a new life in a neighborhood. The purpose is to build unlikely yet mutually beneficial friendships.

The idea for ‘Causeway’ comes out of an ongoing awareness of and discontent with the fact that many of the men and women who leave shelters and find housing end up feeling isolated and alone in their new apartments. Ultimately, many lose their housing for one reason or another stemming from that loneliness. They then end up back in the shelter system because it’s the closest thing to ‘home’ that they know. This is mostly due to the fact that while they live in shelters they have community, but when they move into their own apartments, they are all alone with no friends or family and no idea how to begin finding community in their neighbourhood.

We also know that many committed Christians are asking regularly, ‘How do we get involved?’ Many Christ-followers really want to do something more than sit in the pew each Sunday. There is a stirring in people’s souls that they want to do something about injustice and poverty but they really do not know what that can look like while they have jobs and family responsibilities. They want to roll up their sleeves and help, but don’t know where to start.

Causeway addresses both of these realities. In fact, the word “Causeway” comes from this concept of bridging a gap. A Causeway is a person-made bridge between two previously separated and impossible-to-connect bodies. The bridge that the causeway initiative is trying to create is between the rich and the poor, between people with resources and people who lack them, between the local church and inner city ministries, between people who have community and people who desire it.

Causeway is NOT a social service program. It is not about providing ‘services’ to ‘clients’. It is an initiative that only can work if both parties involved understand that the friendships being created can and will be mutually beneficial.