Grants Announced to Help Faith Communities Convert Property to Affordable Housing

The Banner has a subscription to republish articles from Religion News Service. This story by Alejandra Molina was published on religionnews.com Feb. 23, 2022. It has been edited for length and related stories from the Christian Reformed Church have been added.

A faith-based development initiative of U.S. nonprofit Enterprise Community Partners has received a boost of $8.5 million in grants from the Wells Fargo Foundation to help houses of worship convert underutilized land into affordable homes and community facilities. The organizations announced the investment Feb. 23 at Atlanta (Ga.) First United Methodist Church. 

This money will help build roughly 6,000 affordable homes, Enterprise said.

“To meet my administration’s ambitious goal of creating or preserving 20,000 units of affordable housing, we will need the assistance of all facets of our community using all tools at our disposal,” Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said at the event.

In Atlanta’s Fulton County alone, faith-based organizations own more than 6,000 acres, much of which is underutilized, Enterprise said. With this funding, Enterprise will help about 15 houses of worship in the Atlanta metro area to create 1,000 affordable homes over the next five years.

As pastors might lack the resources or knowledge to cut housing deals, the nonprofit will assist faith leaders in navigating the development process, enter into long-term ground lease agreements and refer them to vetted development partners, such as architects and designers.

Related: From Vacant Lots to Affordable Housing: Church Members Participate in ‘Restoration Row’ (Feb. 7, 2020); Ecumenical Grant Helps Toronto Churches Talk about Affordable Housing (Jan. 23, 2019); Michigan Church Partners with Nonprofit to Develop Housing, Worship Space (April 6, 2018)

Enterprise’s Faith-Based Development Initiative launched in 2006 in the Mid-Atlantic region, where it has helped faith-based organizations create or preserve more than 1,500 affordable homes and one community-based health clinic.

“It’s this notion (that) there’s a compelling human need that a house of worship exists in and it’s sitting on a resource. It becomes a stewardship issue. Is this something that God is calling us to do … that allows us to be good and faithful stewards to have more impact?” David Bowers, vice president at Enterprise Community Partners, told Religion News Service.

“Does this mean every house of worship should do it? No. What we are saying is that you have the need. You have the resource. There is potential to get this done in a way that helps provide for the needs of people who are living in the community in which houses of worship exist,” added Bowers, who is also an ordained minister.