Green Pastures is an award winning Christian Charity and Social Enterprise releasing the Church to end homelessness in the UK. Jeff Short chats to co-founder Pete Cunningham about the work they are doing.

A variety of people feel God is calling them to do something in their area. We come along and buy them the house, which releases them to get on with the ministry they want to do. They go out and find the people they want to house, they house them and the great thing is about 1 in 3 come to know Jesus which is the huge bonus of serving Jesus in this way.

Jeff: I read somewhere that a lot of these people have got a criminal record and there's a huge re-offending rate amongst people who are homeless, so you're addressing something there that's going to help the whole society.

Pete: Absolutely. That's why this year is going to be phenomenal. We've been talking to the Ministry of Justice for the last ten years and at last there's a guy there who is in charge of the 60,000 people that are released. 36,000 go back to prison, 18,000 of those go back to prison because they have nowhere to live. He's going to come and talk to us and say how can you help us solve this problem. The government is going to ask the church of Jesus Christ how can you solve the problem. I tell you what, we can do.

Jeff: Seriously, that is a wonderful testimony when people outside look in and can recognise that you are doing something right, when the government come and ask you.

Pete: This to me is totally amazing because we don't feel like we're anything special. But certainly, the 800 ex-offenders we're housing we know the re-offending rate drops from 70% to 10% and when you think a third of them come to know the Lord.

If you go on the website and see some of the testimonies of these people, they are absolutely rampant to serve God and change the society. I should think they become a pain in the neck to their local church because they're saying when are we going to win a few folk for Jesus. That's what they're about; it's wonderful.

100th bed space

Jeff: How do churches or individuals become partners of Green Pastures?

Pete: They can go on our website, just fill in a small form saying we're really interested and we'd like to know how to become a partner. We now have about 8 partner liaisons around the country that would come round and talk to them, talk it through with them, see how they would operate, what they need to do, how it functions. And if we like one another we'll buy them a house and off they go, serving Jesus by housing the people that Jesus has said we need to look after.

This is part of the gospel of Christ; housing people who are homeless is part of what Jesus has said the church should be doing.

Jeff: I agree. It's wonderful when somebody comes to Christ but there's also the scripture in Mathew's gospel where it says I was hungry and you fed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me. I sometimes think we sweep that under the carpet as though that was for somebody else, not me.

Pete: That's right. If the church really got underway, 40,000 churches all bought one house that would be 120,000 people housed in a year. The maths is very easy to do.

Jeff: You also have the reverse maths where a couple of fish sandwiches feed a multitude. What are your plans for the next year?

Pete: We're going to have at least another 150 this year; that's what we know we're going to be able to do. But the way things look we might be doing 300, which is quite a good number. We've got good investment coming in because the way we buy the properties Christians loan us money.

We have loan stock. We're a community benefit society. We issue loan stock and people take up the loan stock and we pay them 4 or 5%, which is a phenomenal rate of interest today, for anybody that is in the mid market. If they're getting 1 or 2% they're doing well but we're paying 4 and 5%. So we've got people investing in us; there's about £700,000 a month coming in, which is terrific.