So Your Church Wants to Build Affordable Housing?

Thanks to the genius of Mark Elsden and other creative pastoral leaders throughout many denominations, Affordable Housing on Church Property is an increasingly interesting idea, especially if our congregations are serious about serving their neighbors.

• “In the next thirty years, one hundred thousand churches in the USA will shut their doors for good” according to Mark Elsden in Gone for Good?: Negotiating the Coming Wave of Church Property Transition.
• “6.8 million more affordable housing units are needed for extremely low income families” according to The National Low Income Housing Coalition.
• As police officers, school teachers, and even pastors find it difficult to find affordable housing in increasingly unaffordable locations, it is not unusual to find such professionals driving Ubers, waiting tables, or picking up part-time retail positions in order to cover their rents and mortgages. The City of Charlotte, NC is planning to create a Teacher Village to help retain teachers who make notoriously low salaries.

In the Presbytery where I live, six congregations are considering or already in the process of building affordable housing on church property. Check out this article.*

If we are serious about serving our neighbors, if we are authentically committed to addressing what breaks God’s heart in our communities, consider using unused or underused church property to provide affordable housing for those in need of safe, clean homes.

Important note:

• Building affordable housing on church property is NOT for your congregation if you are doing this “to get people to join your church.” Lose that expectation right away. This kind of project is not about getting new members. It’s about serving strangers who will – most likely – never join our congregations. That’s not why we do it.

• Building affordable housing on church property is NOT for your congregation if you judge all who need affordable housing as if they are gang members or drug dealers. Affordable Housing is certainly needed by the formerly incarcerated and others in transition. It’s also needed by retired veterans, firefighters, child care workers, young adults aging out of foster care, refugees, seniors, and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Imagine the expansion of your mission impact if you had people right next door for whom you could be a community of support.

• Building affordable housing on church property is NOT for your congregation if you are a “get off my lawn” kind of neighbor. If our chief concern is selfish (“what if our parking is impacted?“) we need to admit that we are simply not willing to serve people who need more than a can of soup. If we are not willing to be inconvenienced a bit so that other families have a safe place to live, that’s a spiritual issue.

Once upon a time, my denomination built hospitals and universities because the community needed them. And now our communities need affordable housing. We can address this. Or not. (I hope we will!)

Image of The Waypoint at Fairlington Presbyterian Church in Alexandria, Virginia – one of my favorite congregations – for households whose income is at or below 60% of the area median income (AMI).

*If you hit a pay wall, share your email address in the comments and I’ll send it to you.