Brick by Brick
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Brick by Brick
Faith-Based Development Takes More Than A Prayer
Religious organizations are some of the biggest landholders in the country and communities are increasingly looking to them to help solve the housing crisis. Some efforts are already underway but churches say they need zoning help to build on their properties. Faith-based development can take many forms. Is it making a difference?
Interview guests:
Nadia Mian, researcher Rutgers University; Pastor Monique French, Washington Heights United Methodist Church and Community-Battle Creek, Michigan; Father Benjamin Spear-Hardy II, St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church-Trotwood; Wes Young, St. Mary’s Development Corporation
Please give us your feedback: https://forms.gle/UjrZ1jYdtvRjgKqT9
Ann Thompson:
Religious groups own millions of acres of land and thousands of empty buildings. Could this available space be used for more housing?
Jeff Allenby:
Based on our initial estimates, there's about 750,000 parcels, not acres, parcels of religious owned land across the country, and a lot of it is in markets that do have a substantial need for housing.
Ann Thompson:
As congregation sizes decline and revenues dry up, churches are being encouraged to address the housing shortage in their own backyard. Former HUD secretary, Marcia Fudge, grouped them in with other big landholders recently during a webinar at Harvard.
Marcia Fudge:
Universities, houses of worship hospitals control most of the land and vacant land in this country. They should be using it to help people who need them.
Ann Thompson:
It's estimated by 2030 100,000 church buildings will be sold or repurposed. That's a quarter to a third of them. Some of those closures could be prevented with rental income from housing units on their land.
Nadia Mian:
They could be using that property, subdividing it, and then building on the subdivided lot.
Ann Thompson:
Faith-based development is growing across the country. One Michigan Church even purchased property outside its campus to house people.
Monique French:
We bought three houses and an apartment building,
Ann Thompson:
But projects like these are not easy and they're not quick. They take lots of money and require zoning changes when built on church property. A planned development by this suburban Dayton House of Worship has been delayed for decades,
Benjamin Spear-Hardy II:
So we have a very bright future before things begin to go haywire.
Ann Thompson:
On this episode, faith-based development, who's doing it, how they're doing it and legislation designed to make it easier, so-called YIGBY Laws. Yes, in God's backyard. Let's get into it. This is Brick by Brick Solutions for a thriving community.
Ame Clase:
Brick by Brick is made possible thanks to leading support from AES Ohio Foundation, Greater Cincinnati Foundation and George and Margaret McLane Foundation, with additional support from Laurie F. Johnston, Murray and Agnes Seasongood Good Government Foundation, The Robert & Adelle Schiff Family Foundation, and more. Thank you.
Ann Thompson:
Hello, and welcome to Brick by Brick, where we're highlighting solutions for a thriving community in southwest Ohio. I'm your host Ann Thompson. Faith-based development can take many forms. The most straightforward one is the church builds housing on its own property, which requires changes to zoning. Another way is for churches to buy land in the community and build housing. A third option is for developers to buy church land or a boarded-up church building. With attendance in decline and enormous parking lots sitting empty, religious groups are realizing the land they own can add value both to the neighborhood and to their own pocket through rent, but the process to build housing is expensive and complicated. How many houses of worship are successfully doing it? A Rutgers University researcher, Nadia Mian, is trying to find out by creating a database listing us faith-based developments constructed in the last decade.
Nadia Mian:
I'm looking at congregation led affordable housing where congregations are taking the lead to use some of their underutilized or excess land to build affordable housing on their property. And so I've been looking at ways in which they have advocated for some zoning changes to take place as well as just in the different ways that this is being done.
Ann Thompson:
So far, she's found about 100 faith-based developments.
Nadia Mian:
The movement has definitely taken hold. I mean it started kind of in California in San Diego with a church that wanted to build affordable housing using their parking lot and came up against some zoning regulations and San Diego ended up changing some of those for them, and then it kind of spread. Oregon had been doing this, Washington state, but now it's a lot more. States are looking at different ways to make it easier for houses of worship to do this work.
Ann Thompson:
We'll get to the legislation part a little bit later in the podcast. Here are a few examples of what churches are doing across the US and internationally. Arlington Presbyterian Church in Virginia tore down its main church and sold the land at below market value to a nonprofit who built 173 units of affordable housing. The church now rents worship space on the ground floor of the apartment building. Ebenezer Urban Ministry Center at Brooklyn bought two city blocks and turned them into more than 500 affordable apartments. Inglewood, California First United Methodist Church has plans for 60 studio apartments replacing empty school buildings on its campus. First Baptist Church in Vancouver, Canada sold its air rights and one of its parcels to a developer who built a 57 story apartment tower right behind the church with the proceeds. They built a brand new sanctuary with a daycare, a seven story affordable apartment building, community space, and a gym that can also house people during the cold winter months. Faith-based development is slow to catch on in Ohio, but that doesn't mean there's not an interest Brick by bricks. Emiko Moore reports on a suburban Dayton effort that began decades ago.
Emiko Moore:
St Margaret's Episcopal church in the Trotwood neighborhood of Dayton sits on a 61 acre property lined with trees, 28 acres of farmland, natural springs, and a grove of black walnut trees. Father Benjamin Spear-Hardy II became the priest of this congregation in 2001 with the mission of building a senior of affordable housing community around the church.
Benjamin Spear-Hardy II:
We have been blessed because we have the land to do it and why not make use of the land to affect the lives of those who are in need.
Emiko Moore:
At his previous church in Columbus, Georgia, Father Spear built a 48 unit affordable senior housing community and was called to Dayton to build another community, working with developers to create a seven phase plan.
Benjamin Spear-Hardy II:
The senior population is growing at Baby Bowman's place to retire, a place to live, and so there was a great need. We know there's a need for housing.
Emiko Moore:
St. Mary's development in corporation is a nonprofit organization that focuses on real estate development in affordable housing and services for seniors. According to the president, Wes Young, 60% of residents in the Dayton area only have social security, which is about $15,000 a year and every day in the US, 10,000 people turned 65.
Wes Young:
You could blindfold me, give me a set of darts and a dart board. I could throw darts and you could find a need where you need affordable housing. It's everywhere. Every single part of Ohio needs affordable housing,
Emiko Moore:
But Father Spear-Hardy, geared up for his mission. A series of unforeseen national and regional crises took precedent setting the project back repeatedly,
Benjamin Spear-Hardy II:
And I was at Sinclair Community College and negotiating for us to have a program of banquet for fundraising, and I was looking at a monitor and there were the planes going in a building in New York and the World Trade Center and everything just went crazy from there.
Emiko Moore:
After a few years, they completed the new church and started on phase one, but the 2008 housing crisis put things on hold and in 2019 a tornado devastated the Trotwood area.
Benjamin Spear-Hardy II:
So the church became the Epic Center during the tornado for resources
Emiko Moore:
Still recovering from the devastation as the pandemic hit, the church pivoted to help the community,
Benjamin Spear-Hardy II:
And so we began to advocate for testing and for vaccine. So the church again became a clinic.
Emiko Moore:
When many members of the congregation who supported the project passed away. Father Spear- Hardy's faith was tested even more.
Benjamin Spear-Hardy II:
One of the things I had to learn was to be patient because I got very frustrated and I even questioned God, what in the world you got me doing here? You brought me here. I'm going through all this stuff. Especially when I started losing members, I had to take two weeks off. I mean, can you imagine burying over 200 people in the congregation and I knew all of them.
Emiko Moore:
After the pandemic and continued disinvestment in the area, St. Margaret's began working with St. Mary's Development Corporation to revise their plan to put two 100 unit homes near the church.
Wes Young:
Father Ben's parishioners are like a lot of churches these days where they have older and older population, so there's a ready-made population that would love to live there real near their church. We were real near their community, near their friends, and that's why we became interested in it.
Emiko Moore:
Well, St Margaret's assets include land zoning built-in utilities, a bus stop nearby. They still were not able to score high enough for the highly competitive government tax credits so that affordable housing developers would take on the project.
Wes Young:
Right at the moment, it's not the rules for various funding sources are not lining up for us to allow us to do that
Emiko Moore:
While the housing plans are on hold. Again, the various roadblocks such as the tornado and the pandemic forced father spear hardy and his church to shift gears to serve other community needs.
Benjamin Spear-Hardy II:
We may have all the plans, but being with those families during the times of need is so important. And so once I had surrounded altar God and said, Lord, you're in charge. I'll just follow your lead. Whatever you lead, I'll follow. And then I became better after that.
Emiko Moore:
Today, Father Spear-Hardy remains steadfast to help build more affordable housing.
Benjamin Spear-Hardy II:
I'm just excited and I hope that this would somehow sparked the interest of someone out there who may have an interest in our vision for our community and will be willing to come and partner with us to make this happen.
Ann Thompson:
Thanks for that story. Emiko, what are some of the challenges that St. Margaret's Church faces when competing for tax credit fundings to build affordable housing?
Emiko Moore:
Well, they do have a lot of assets already. Proper zoning, 61 acres of land. They're on a bus line. However, they do not have some of the amenities such as grocery stores and medical centers in close enough proximity, which affects their scoring and makes it more challenging when it's already a competitive process. I think faith-based developments have a lot to offer and serving the community and could do a lot to keep people connected, which is really vital to seniors.
Ann Thompson:
Alright, thank you Emiko. We'll talk to you in the takeaways.
Emiko Moore:
Sure.
Ann Thompson:
Just like the church Emiko told you about, others are running into roadblocks. People's Church in Cincinnati's, Coville neighborhood has plans for a $60 million mixed use development, including a new sanctuary retail and a four story market rate apartment building. But just this month, the church told Brick by Brick, it decided to table the project. With the uncertainty of various government funding sources, people's church is hopeful it can move forward on the project. Later this year, plans are moving forward with the redevelopment of the Historic Grace Church property in conjunction with the Avondale Development Corporation. 8K will turn the church and its annex into commercial space and up to 20 affordable residential apartment units along Glenwood Avenue.
There could be more developments on former church property in the future. Brick by Brick looked at an online marketplace for commercial real estate called LoopNet and found at least six churches for sale in Cincinnati and four in Dayton. Down the road, the Cincinnati Archdiocese may be putting some of its churches on the market. The Catholic church here is consolidating 208 parishes into 57. We'll follow up over the next several months. Rutger's researcher, Nadia Mian, says the Catholic Church is experienced when it comes to selling real estate.
Nadia Mian:
So I put the Catholic Church within a different kind of a category because they have an entire division that is dedicated to their real estate assets and managing those assets, and so they have a much stronger sense of how to develop and where the land is and how that land is managed. So I don't fit them in the same kind of category as these kind of congregation led affordable housing projects.
Ann Thompson:
The Diocese of Covington, Kentucky has sold at least five churches and schools that were converted into housing. You can find those on our website at cetconnect.org and thinktv.org coming up on Brick by Brick. What if you don't have any land to develop on your church campus but still want to make a difference?
Monique French:
We were able to purchase some dilapidated homes and we did some renovations to the homes so that we can put people in those homes. And then we purchased plots of land, so we're looking to do a community housing development
Ann Thompson:
That's ahead on Brick by Brick.
Ame Clase:
Brick by Brick is made possible thanks to the generous support of so many, including Diane and Dave Moccia, P & G, The Camden Foundation, The Stephen H. Wilder Foundation, Rosmary & Mark Schlachter, a donation in memory of Frank and Margaret Linhardt, The A. T. Folger Jr. Lowe Simpson Fund and more. Thank you. We couldn't do this work without you.
Mark Lammers:
Hey, we all have a different story even if we grew up in the same neighborhood or city, especially if we're talking about housing stories. Hi, my name is Mark Lammers, executive producer for Brick by Brick. Growing up, I lived on the west side of Cincinnati in a single family home, but I've also experienced apartment life in good and bad settings in a number of different cities. I learned a lot from those times in my life and from my journey as a whole. Now we want to hear about your housing story. That's the new audience question that's live on our show pages at thinktv.org and cetconnect.org. Log in and hit the green button to share your journey and what you learn from it. We hope to share some of your experiences and lessons as we move forward on Brick by Brick so we can all get smarter together. Thanks.
Ann Thompson:
Welcome back to Brick by Brick. It's one thing to study how many churches are doing faith-based development and another to figure out how many could be doing it. The Center for Geospatial Solutions associated with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy estimates there's about 750,000 parcels, not acres, of religious owned land across the country. A private foundation commissioned it to find out about church property just in the state of Massachusetts, director Jeff Allenby says, the center…
Jeff Allenby:
Ended up finding about 7,500 properties again that were buildable weren't the main house of worship across the state. That really has the opportunity to support a large number of affordable housing across the state of Massachusetts. And again, this was in areas where housing was needed, transit accessible, Massachusetts a little bit smaller and does have a fairly good public transit system.
Ann Thompson:
Identifying these properties might've sounded like a big job and to most people it would've been, but with computer software and 15 college students who worked on the project, it took less than two months.
Jeff Allenby:
The students actually went through all of these properties and used things like Google Streetview to drop down in the street next to the property that we said was a religious owned property and actually assess, does this actually look like it's a church? Does it look like there's actually buildable land on the property or is it going down into a ravine where you're not actually going to build anything? And so we had that level of field verification even though they didn't step foot across the state, they used Google Street View, but they gave us a much higher confidence that the properties that we had identified actually were religious owned properties and actually were had some buildable potential to them.
Ann Thompson:
And Allenby is working with religious organizations in other states.
Jeff Allenby:
We're doing a similar project down in Virginia with the Episcopal Diocese and starting to have some conversations with other groups in Minnesota and Indiana, in Arizona to really begin to look at kind of just this amazing opportunity Nationally,
Ann Thompson:
Some churches are even branching out beyond their own property. Washington Heights, United Methodist Church and Community is one of them. Pastor Monique French explains that Battle Creek Michigan Church is in a historically disadvantaged community and there is great need for housing.
Monique French:
We bought three houses and an apartment building. It's a four single unit apartment building. In the apartment building there were people who were formerly homeless that we provided opportunities for them to get those properties. We have some single mothers that reside in some of the homes and people who were in the community who were looking for housing in the community. So those are the people who live in those spaces.
Ann Thompson:
Now the church is embarking on a plan to build 17 houses in the community and open house for the first one is scheduled for May 20th.
Monique French:
We're currently looking for people who are interested in investing in this project. We have received some grant funding. We received initial funding, seed funding for this project through the WK Kellogg Foundation, and we use that funding as leverage funding. So instead of building one house, we're able to use that as leverage funds.
Ann Thompson:
Pastor French encourages other religious institutions to do the same.
Monique French:
A big advice that I would give churches that are interested in doing this is actually listening to the community, making sure that the community is involved. It's good to do it with the community and not to the community,
Ann Thompson:
And you don't have to be big to do big things. Washington Heights, United Methodist Church and community has just 30 active members.
Building housing units in the community doesn't require zoning changes to the extent that putting up apartments on church property does. Zoning is probably the biggest roadblock for religious institutions in faith-based development. The term YIGBY or Yes, in God's backyard was coined in 2019 by San Diego housing activists who petitioned for zoning changes. Since then, California and the State of Washington have passed YIGBY laws. ShelterForce reports that in California, nonprofit colleges and religious institutions now have the power to build 100% affordable housing projects on their properties “by right” bypassing any special zoning requirements the city might have as long as the project meets state mandated criteria. Other states considering YIGBY laws include New York, Virginia, and Hawaii cities. Adopting the fast track laws include Atlanta and San Antonio, Ohio.
Senator Sherrod Brown has introduced a national bill to encourage more affordable housing through faith-based development. It would provide technical assistance to churches and local governments and financial incentives to communities who remove barriers. Other limiting factors include NIMBYism, not in my backyard and money. There are churches that although they can't create housing right now, are doing other things with their property, like renting out commercial kitchens to food entrepreneurs, creating staging areas for food trucks, providing EV charging sites and hosting regional healthcare clinics. And there is something else, a new nationwide app called ChurchSpace. It helps houses of worship rent out their available space to the community, kind of like an Airbnb for churches. Detroit based founder, Emmanuel Brown explains in this YouTube video,
Emmanual Brown:
Listing on church base is an opportunity for you to better serve your community. Let's talk about the potential type of guests who will be using your space. One, it all depends on the type of space that you have. If you have a commercial kitchen, that's a great way to help food entrepreneurs to run successful businesses. At your church's commercial kitchen. You can help other types of small business owners and entrepreneurs through meeting space, co-working space, or conference rooms, or you can use your space to support local event planners for weddings, funerals, birthday parties, local gatherings or corporate events in your sanctuary.
Ann Thompson:
Brown says churches can make extra money by renting out podiums, microphones, sound systems, pianos, printers and more, and can require their own staff to operate them. Dig deeper into faith-based development and other topics by going to cetconnect.org and thinktv.org. There's also a couple of big green buttons to give your feedback where you can also tell your own housing story. For example, we welcome Emiko Moore back to the microphone. Hello, and say hi to Hernz Laguerre Jr.
Hernz Laguerre Jr.:
Hey everyone,
Ann Thompson:
It's time for takeaways, Hernz?
Hernz Laguerre Jr.:
Yeah. This episode reminded me of our takeaway for episode 26 when you spoke to Jeff Allenby for the director for Geospatial Solutions at the Lincoln Institute.
Ann Thompson:
Right
Hernz Laguerre Jr.:
And you guys spoke about utilizing vacant land that was owned by the federal government and which led me to think about churches and what churches own and whether they could be utilized for affordable housing. I know you guys mentioned in the episode that financing would probably be the toughest thing, right? Both in Dayton and Cincinnati, there were situations where churches had difficulty finding the funding in order to make these housing units. I wonder if what happened in New Jersey might happen to other areas. There was an Episcopal church that wants to utilize their 11 acre property to build a shelter home for those who are homeless. But the mayor wanted to use the area for new park for local families who lived nearby to walk in. And it just made me think that these churches, on top of thinking about finances, they're also going to have to think about zoning, about whether their plans correspond with the plans from the city council or the mayor and so on and so forth.
Ann Thompson:
Yeah, roadblocks all over the place. Emiko, this makes me think of Father Ben.
Emiko Moore:
That is true. These faith-based organizations have missions that I do think often naturally meet the needs of those who are living in affordable housing, for example, support and building communities. So in that sense, it's a good pairing and a lot of cities would really benefit that. And in addition, it can save the government a lot of money. Wes Young, the president of St. Mary's Development Corporation said that every month that they keep someone living independent in affordable senior housing, it can save the government $6,000 a month and think about that's a significant amount. If you have a hundred unit housing that could potentially save $6,000 a month per person that if my calculations are correct, is over $7 million savings a year.
Ann Thompson:
Yeah, that's a lot of money. Well, here's a way that you can save some money. So in Phoenix, a senior living developer and the Roman Catholic Church there did a deal in which the developer is leasing the church land under a 90 year fixed rate ground lease and is preparing to build five senior living communities. Here are some other ways, because StrongTowns advocates that churches should stick with small incremental developments because the big ones take too long and end up costing way too much money. So here's an example on the high end, an eight story 144 unit project in Northern Virginia took over a decade and $84 million to complete. That works out to almost $600,000 per unit. And then on the extreme low end Sacred Settlements in St. Paul, Minnesota is building tiny homes on church properties for about 35,000. So quite a difference. There appears to be help for financing in the future. Emiko?
Emiko Moore:
Yes, there is a bipartisan bill that was introduced last month in the Senate. It's called the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act of 2025, which would expand and improve the low income housing tax credit and that would help bolster affordable housing developments. And it has a lot of bipartisan support from 28 additional co-sponsors. So I see that as a positive, especially in the environment we're in now.
Ann Thompson:
Alright, good news. We'll be following that. Well thanks guys.
Hernz Laguerre Jr.:
No problem.
Emiko Moore:
Thank you
Ann Thompson:
Coming up on the next episode of Brick By Brick, one of the biggest needs for those reentering society from prison is housing experts say there's not just one solution.
Claudia Aiken:
The Homecoming Project is a home sharing model where people agree to rent a room in their home to a person who's reentering from prison, and then the program provides support to both the tenant and the landlord to make sure that that match is successful,
Ann Thompson:
That and other solutions. Next time on Brick by Brick,
That's our show. If you like what you hear, please rate and review our podcast. It helps finding the pod a little easier. If you like what you heard, please share it with your friends and family. For Emiko Moore and Hernz Laguerre Jr. I'm Ann Thompson. We'll be back soon with more solutions. Take care.
Our show is produced, hosted an edited by me, Ann Thompson with reporting and story editing from Hernz Laguerre Jr. and Emiko Moore. Our Executive producer of Mark Lammers. Our show consultant is Gloria Skurski. Gabe Wimberly is our audio engineer and mixer. Zach Kramer runs the lights and cameras. Derrick Smith is our production specialist and Jason Garrison is our production manager. Kellie May heads up our marketing and promotions, along with Mike Shea and Bridgett Dillenburger. Elyssa Stefenson handles the website and Steve Wright is our designer. Bill Dean and Andres Kruza are the engineers for the show and our Chief Content Officer is Colin Scianamblo. Our music is from Universal Production Music. Brick by Brick: Solutions for a Thriving Community is a production of CET and ThinkTV, Southwest Ohio PBS member stations.