CLIMATE Features SLM

Street Life Ministries to use $2M grant for residential rehabilitation program

By Aimee Lewis Strain

One kind gesture can tap a wellspring of compassion. More than 22 years ago, Pastor Tony Gapastione of Peninsula Covenant Church in Redwood City ordered a pizza for a group of homeless men huddled near the Menlo Park train station. That single act eventually led to the creation of Street Life Ministries (SLM), which today serves 40,000 meals annually in Redwood City and Menlo Park while also providing clothing, toiletries and connections to medical services, healthcare and shelter.

Now, thanks to an anonymous donor, SLM has received a $2 million matching grant to launch and sustain its new Homeless to Healthy (H2H) program, a faith-based residential drug-and-alcohol rehabilitation effort.

Nicholas Rubingh, SLM’s grant and program manager, says the initiative will treat approximately 20 men at a time, offering them a year of in-house recovery “not just from life on the streets and all that comes with that, but a fresh start, with job and life training.”