10/19/2026
Dear Friends,
In a recent letter, I wrote that the debate over homelessness cannot simply be about parks, public spaces, or moving people from one place to another. The deeper challenge is helping people address the circumstances that keep them trapped in homelessness.
For St. John’s Ministries, that understanding is not new, nor is our response a reaction to the challenges we see today. Our work has grown steadily throughout our history as resources have allowed, shaped by the understanding that people need more than a safe place to sleep. Today, we are defining that work more clearly, pursuing it more intentionally, and building the services and partnerships necessary to carry it forward.
Growing with Our Community
For twenty-one years, St. John’s Ministries has grown alongside our community’s response to homelessness. What began as a single seasonal emergency shelter has become a year-round ministry operating four facilities in Green Bay, reflecting our community’s long-standing commitment to addressing homelessness.
That growth has been steady, but the environment in which we serve has continued to change. As greater Green Bay has grown and prospered, the challenges facing some of our neighbors experiencing homelessness have become more complex. Housing has become increasingly difficult to find and afford, while addiction, mental illness, trauma, chronic health conditions, and broken relationships can create additional barriers to achieving stability.
At the same time, the regional service landscape has changed. Some shelter and supportive-living programs have closed, others have become more specialized, and many operate at or near capacity. Every provider has a role to play and limits to what it can do. Taken together, however, these changes can leave fewer options for people facing the greatest barriers, especially those whose path toward sobriety and stability may be long and rarely straightforward.
Addiction and mental illness are serious challenges, but they should not automatically close the door to someone seeking help. That belief is central to our low-barrier approach. We have limits, as every provider does, but we remain committed to reducing unnecessary barriers and serving people facing especially difficult circumstances.
Why We Exist
That commitment is rooted in something deeper. Through every stage of our growth, we have chosen not to look away. We believe that no struggle, circumstance, or mistake along the way diminishes a person’s worth. As a Christian ministry, we believe every person is created by God with dignity, purpose, and potential.
Our calling is not simply to provide a bed for the night. We shelter people because safety creates the opportunity for something more: to reconnect with support, pursue recovery, rebuild relationships, find housing, and move toward a healthy and fulfilled life.
That life does not end in isolation, estrangement, addiction, or an early death. That is why we will remain accessible to people who may have difficulty finding the help they need, even when their circumstances are complex. We do this not because the work is easy, but because they are the very people our mission calls us to stand beside.
Shelter Plus Services
That conviction led to the development of our Shelter Plus Services Model.
Today, shelter is both a safe haven and a starting point. Through case management, housing assistance, peer support, outreach services, and community partnerships, we work alongside people to address both the immediate crisis of homelessness and the barriers that make it difficult to move beyond it.
As our work has evolved, we have also gained greater clarity about who we are and where we are headed. Our Board of Directors recently affirmed that direction through a new Mission and Vision.
Our Mission
Grounded by faith, we strengthen the greater Green Bay community by providing essential resources, low-barrier shelter, and compassionate support to adults experiencing homelessness and housing instability.
Our Vision
We envision a community that affirms each person’s dignity, offers safety and stability, and provides a path toward lasting change, where adult homelessness is rare, brief, and non-recurring.
These statements put into words who St. John’s Ministries has become and the future we are working toward. Our approach will continue to evolve, but our commitment will not: to meet people where they are, reduce unnecessary barriers to help, and work alongside our partners so fewer people are left without a place to turn.
Homelessness has changed, and so has the way we respond.
With gratitude,
Jesse Brunette
Executive Director
St. John’s Ministries
