Prevention
What our shelter software doesn't know about childhood
Our intake forms start at age 18. For most of the people we serve, the story started much earlier.
Read the post: What our shelter software doesn't know about childhood →Building tools for frontline staff impacting people experiencing homelessness
I build technology inside a homeless shelter. I believe solving homelessness starts in childhood, and that housing isn’t the silver bullet: homelessness is a system of human brokenness. The tools I build should help us notice earlier and help people become whole.
Latest post
All posts →From the notebook
All field notes →Christmas at a mission: what technology can't do
A night shift on 24 December, and the part of the work no system can do.
3 min read
Upstream
One letter a month on building technology for people experiencing homelessness.
Work
Open templates, reports and tools from the Innovation Hub at Hope Mission, free for other organizations to adapt.
Shelter AI Use Policy, open templateComing Mar 2027
AI pilot report: AI that gives staff time backComing May 2027
“Before the Shelter” evidence briefComing Jun 2027
See all work →Speaking
Talks for shelter leaders, youth-serving agencies, funders and churches. I speak from what we built.
“Every adult in our shelter was once a child: technology that notices earlier”
“Build your own: forward deployed engineering for frontline organizations”
Invite Chad to speak →Four convictions shape what I build and write.
Every post on this site sits under one of them. Follow one to read everything filed there.
01Prevention
Solving homelessness starts in childhood.
Many adults in shelter first lost a home as children or youth. The work has to begin long before someone reaches our door.
Read Prevention posts →02Brokenness
Housing is not the silver bullet.
Homelessness is a system of human brokenness. A roof matters, but it doesn’t mend what’s broken underneath.
Read Brokenness posts →03Faith
Only Christ can heal that brokenness.
Programs and tools can serve people, but healing the brokenness at the root belongs to Christ alone.
Read Faith posts →04Build
We can all build solutions.
Every organization can build what its people need. Templated solutions, copied from somewhere else, will ultimately fail.
Read Build posts →