A civilian who leads troops out of the red and into Salvation Army black is changing the way shelters are caring for the disenfranchised in the inner city.

When John Rook was appointed CEO of the Salvation Army’s Centre of Hope three years ago, the first thing he did was realign the community services division. That meant getting rid of four executive directors—a daring move that sparked the eventual elimination of $2.2 million of debt in just 36 months.

“I’ve done some creative things over my time here,” says Rook, 58, whose name was brought to board by a headhunter. “I’m a driven person. I have a goal—to make life better for everyone who comes through this door. Relationship and deep care is what drives us.’’

Rook says he’s built a very cohesive all-female executive team and each member shares the same ‘extreme” desire to make things better.

The soft-spoken Rook says he grew up poor in Brantford. Ont., and put himself through school. He’s confident his experience gave him a heart to care for the homeless and poverty-stricken and to channel his many years of education in that direction. That and the fact that during one his first jobs in a program for children with severe behaviour, a boy died in his care.

“It was devastating—l was only in my early 20s,” he recalls.

Rook went on to complete his masters of divinity from McMaster University and earned his PhD from Oxford.

“I was fascinated with the Bible and my own background. Growing up poor yet in the context of a spiritual family,’’ he says. ‘‘1 was eating up the Bible, particularly passages about widows and orphans and the poor.’’

Rook taught at McMaster for 13 years before joining the school board in Canmore, 100 kilometers west of Calgary, to work with students with severe behaviour.

“1 realized then I’d gone full circle—I was back where I started. But the thread that tied it all together was disenfranchisement— people on the fringe. The homeless, the poor, dysfunction families—everyone is a marginalized person.”

Rook was already employed by Salvation Army social services when a headhunter came calling, lie was hired at a time when Calgary was booming, vet homelessness, drug addictions, family violence and youth on the street were becoming an ever-increasing problem.

“Violence around the shelters is increasing as well,” says Rook. He and directors of other shelters are working on a winter response plan. Rook, who says the Centre of Hope does not receive United Way funding, has proposed a collaboration by which each shelter agrees to stop competing for dollars and to do some creative things by pooling their resources.

“There’s a level of trust that wasn’t there two years ago between the city, the province and the major shelters. We’re all at the same table and we need to work fast so people don’t die.’’

His goal is to acquire community-based housing so people can live with dignity and cook their own food instead of lining up to get it.

‘‘People should live more like families than like rats.’’

Article by Cindy Stephen | Reprinted with permission from Christian Week