Some churches are turning their empty lots into affordable housing

The grassy plot of land across the street from Trinity East United Methodist Church sat empty most of the time.

The land had been occasionally used for outdoor events, food pantries and other gatherings for decades. When the Rev. Marilyn White was appointed pastor more than 11 years ago, the Houston church had already talked about turning the property into housing — though the idea had never gotten off the ground.

White saw changes in the area around Trinity East over the last 10 years. Housing costs rose, and longtime residents increasingly were pushed out.

“I went out and started attending meetings of nonprofits and community meetings and just listening,” White said. “The number one need everywhere I went: We need affordable housing, and we need it quickly.”

The United States faces its most unaffordable housing market in at least a generation, partially driven by a shortage of homes. Some religious leaders are looking to their own backyards, unused parking lots, empty fields and aging buildings as potential spaces for affordable new homes that they can rent out or sell.

For White, Trinity East’s empty lot seems like an opportunity to make a difference in the community. The Houston church reflects a movement dubbed by some as “YIGBY” ­– Yes In God’s Back Yard – an offshoot of the broader pro-housing YIMBY movement .

Some religious institutions see this work as a charitable or nonprofit endeavor. For others, it’s a matter of survival.

The bottom line is that fewer people go to church or other houses of worship than they used to, according to Mark Elsdon, a Presbyterian minister and a developer who works with houses of worship. Some religious institutions may need new sources of revenue as declining membership reduces their income, he said.

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The housing market is shifting toward buyers. They’re still not feeling it

But building housing in the United States, particularly affordable housing, can be a long and expensive process. Religious leaders with little or no experience in real estate development or financing navigate a complicated system, from securing funding and approvals to facing opposition from neighbors and, in some cases, from their own congregants.

“You have to have so many ingredients for that to work. It has to be a site that works, it has to be financially feasible, financing has to be obtained, all the zoning has to be obtained,” Elsdon said.

There is enough unused religious land to make a dent in the country’s affordable housing problem, Elsdon said. But right now, a minority of church land is successfully getting developed because of the hurdles to building affordable housing, he added.

Pastor Joseph Daniels, who leads Emory United Methodist Church in Washington, DC, found himself in a protracted battle with the National Park Service and the DC Historic Preservation Board early in the process of building an affordable housing project on the DC church’s land. The National Park Service unexpectedly designated the church’s property a historic landmark after a private resident petitioned the agency, Daniels said.

Historic designations can be used by local residents seeking to block or delay new development, adding another layer of opposition to projects that are already difficult and expensive to get off the ground.

Ultimately, the congregation won approval to build. But the fight set the project back millions of dollars and at least two years, Daniels said.

In total, the process took 11 years. The result was 99 units of fully affordable housing, which opened its doors in 2019. Daniels said the church still owes its denomination about $2.5 million of an original $3.5 million loan, which it is paying off as the project works toward profitability.

Today, some church members live in the apartments next door and other tenants have joined the congregation.

“History is extremely important, but when it is used to deny persons the opportunity to help others, particularly on land we own, that was a real challenge,” Daniels said.

Two decades ago, Enterprise Community Partners, a nonprofit that creates and promotes affordable housing, began advising religious leaders on housing development. Lawmakers at the time were reluctant to help, said David Bowers, the senior adviser of Enterprise’s faith-based development initiative.

But that is beginning to change.

Lawmakers are increasingly embracing the YIGBY movement, and a growing number of states and cities are rewriting land-use rules to make it easier for religious institutions to build housing on their property.

In recent years, nine states have passed or considered YIGBY legislation, according to the NYU Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. It’s a sign that the movement is gaining traction well beyond individual churches and their communities.

White didn’t navigate the process alone. She got help from local organizations, from Enterprise – and from Daniels, who now had experience wading through the paperwork and maze of local and state agencies needed to secure funding, grants and tax credits.

Trinity East faced its own roadblocks, White said. State officials in Austin, Texas, were reluctant to grant an affordable housing tax credit for the $30 million project because of the area’s crime rate.

Many of these religious housing projects rely on government grants and tax breaks to get off the ground, said Bart Mitchell, CEO of The Community Builders, a nonprofit developer that partnered with Daniels on his church’s affordable housing project in Washington. With rising mortgage rates and tariffs increasing the cost of building materials, these projects are only growing more expensive, he said.

White’s congregation worked with local police departments to create a plan to help reduce the crime rate in the area. After presenting it to Austin government officials, they approved the project’s tax credits this year.

The complex, which will be 90 units of senior housing for residents 55 and older, broke ground in July and is expected to be up and running next year, White said.

White said the years it took to get the project off the ground made her realize how difficult it is to get affordable housing built.

“But I am more convinced than ever that it can be done, and it should be done,” said White, who recently retired as Trinity East’s pastor but continues to oversee the housing project.

When building housing proves too difficult, some religious institutions find other ways to put their underused property to work. One church Elsdon advised converted part of its building into a small-business incubator.

IKAR, a Jewish community in Los Angeles, spent years trying to build an affordable housing complex on the same property as its synagogue. But local parking requirements made the project too expensive, said Melissa Balaban, IKAR’s CEO.

So, the community changed course. This summer, IKAR purchased a motel down the street as a separate housing site.

Sometimes a religious community decides to vacate a property altogether to clear the way for housing. In the Bronx, New York, the Ursuline Sisters convent leased parts of its land to Fordham Bedford Housing Corporation, an affordable housing developer.

The end result is a more than 500-unit affordable housing complex that has livened up the surrounding area, said Heng Ly, the CEO of the Fordham Bedford Housing Corporation.

Elsdon said that while building housing is vital, losing churches and other houses of worship may create larger holes in communities.

“It has a ripple effect because people go to churches to pick up food from a food pantry, or to the Girl Scout troop meets, or neighborhood association meets. In my community, we vote in churches,” he said.

White hopes the new senior community will carry Trinity East’s spirit across the street. The church plans to co-run the development with its real estate partner and provide services to the seniors who live there.

And White plans to mentor other religious leaders on what they, too, could do with the land in their own backyards.

“After our ground-breaking, pastors from other churches started calling me, saying ‘Hey, can we talk to you? Because we want to do the same thing,’” she said.

三一东联合卫理公会教堂对面那片草地大部分时间都空着。

几十年来，这块土地偶尔会被用作户外活动、食品救济站和其他聚会场所。11年前，玛丽莲·怀特牧师被任命为休斯顿教会的牧师时，教会就已经讨论过将这块地改建成住宅——尽管这个想法从未真正付诸实施。

怀特目睹了过去十年间三一东区周边地区的变化。房价上涨，老居民越来越多地被迫搬离。

“我开始参加非营利组织和社区的会议，认真倾听，”怀特说。“我所到之处，大家最迫切的需求都是：我们需要经济适用房，而且需要尽快解决。”

美国正面临至少一代人以来最难以负担的住房市场，部分原因是住房短缺。一些宗教领袖正将目光投向自家后院、废弃停车场、空地和老旧建筑，希望将其改造成经济适用房，用于出租或出售。

对怀特来说，三一东教堂的空地似乎是一个为社区做出贡献的机会。休斯顿的这座教堂体现了一种被一些人称为“YIGBY”（Yes In God's Back Yard，意为“在上帝的后院建房”）的运动，它是更广泛的支持住房建设的YIMBY运动的一个分支。

有些宗教机构将这项工作视为慈善或非营利活动。而对另一些机构来说，这关乎生存。

据与宗教场所合作的长老会牧师兼开发商马克·埃尔斯顿称，归根结底，如今去教堂或其他宗教场所的人比以前少了。他表示，由于信徒人数下降导致收入减少，一些宗教机构可能需要寻找新的收入来源。

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房地产市场正在向买家倾斜。但他们仍然没有感受到这一点。

但在美国建造住房，尤其是经济适用房，可能是一个漫长而昂贵的过程。宗教领袖在房地产开发或融资方面经验不足，他们要应对复杂的体系，从筹集资金和获得审批，到面对邻居甚至在某些情况下来自自己教众的反对。

“要让这个项目成功，需要具备很多要素。选址必须合适，经济上必须可行，必须获得融资，所有分区许可都必须获得批准，”埃尔斯顿说。

埃尔斯顿表示，未使用的宗教用地数量充足，足以缓解该国经济适用房短缺的问题。但他补充说，目前只有少数教会土地得到成功开发，原因是建造经济适用房存在诸多障碍。

位于华盛顿特区的埃默里联合卫理公会教堂牧师约瑟夫·丹尼尔斯，在教堂土地上建造经济适用房项目的初期，就与国家公园管理局和华盛顿特区历史保护委员会陷入了一场旷日持久的斗争。丹尼尔斯说，一位居民向国家公园管理局提出申请后，该机构出人意料地将教堂的土地指定为历史地标。

历史遗迹认定可能会被当地居民用来阻止或拖延新的开发项目，这无疑会给本就难以启动且成本高昂的项目增加另一层反对因素。

最终，教会获得了建造许可。但丹尼尔斯说，这场斗争使该项目损失了数百万美元，至少延误了两年。

整个过程历时11年。最终建成了99套完全经济适用房，并于2019年投入使用。丹尼尔斯表示，教会目前仍欠其教派约250万美元的贷款（最初贷款额为350万美元），随着项目逐步实现盈利，教会正在偿还这笔贷款。

如今，一些教会成员住在隔壁的公寓里，其他租户也加入了教会。

丹尼尔斯说：“历史非常重要，但当它被用来剥夺人们帮助他人的机会时，尤其是在我们拥有的土地上，那真是一个挑战。”

二十年前，致力于创建和推广经济适用房的非营利组织“企业社区伙伴”（Enterprise Community Partners）开始为宗教领袖提供住房开发方面的建议。该组织基于信仰的发展计划高级顾问大卫·鲍尔斯表示，当时的立法者不愿提供帮助。

但这种情况正在开始改变。

立法者们越来越支持YIGBY运动，越来越多的州和城市正在修改土地使用规则，以便宗教机构更容易在其土地上建造住房。

据纽约大学弗曼房地产与城市政策中心统计，近年来已有九个州通过或考虑了YIGBY相关立法。这表明，该运动的影响力已远远超出单个教会及其社区的范围。

怀特并非独自完成整个过程。她得到了当地组织、企业以及丹尼尔斯的帮助。丹尼尔斯现在拥有丰富的经验，能够应对申请资金、补助金和税收抵免所需的繁琐文件和错综复杂的州和地方机构关系。

怀特表示，Trinity East项目也面临着自身的阻碍。由于该地区的犯罪率较高，德克萨斯州奥斯汀市的州政府官员不愿为这个耗资3000万美元的项目提供经济适用房税收抵免。

“许多宗教住房项目都依赖政府拨款和税收优惠才能启动，”巴特·米切尔说道。他是“社区建设者”（The Community Builders）的首席执行官，这是一家非营利性开发商，曾与丹尼尔斯合作在华盛顿为他的教会建造经济适用房项目。他表示，随着抵押贷款利率和关税的上涨，建筑材料成本也随之增加，这些项目的成本只会越来越高。

怀特的教会与当地警察部门合作制定了一项旨在降低该地区犯罪率的计划。在向奥斯汀市政府官员提交该计划后，他们于今年批准了该项目的税收抵免。

怀特表示，该综合体将为 55 岁及以上的居民提供 90 套老年公寓，已于 7 月破土动工，预计明年投入使用。

怀特表示，该项目启动所花费的数年时间让她意识到建造经济适用房有多么困难。

“但我比以往任何时候都更加确信，这件事可以做到，而且应该做到，”怀特说道。他最近从三一东教堂牧师的职位上退休，但仍继续监督该住房项目。

当建造住房过于困难时，一些宗教机构会寻找其他方式来利用其闲置的房产。埃尔斯顿曾建议一家教堂将其部分建筑改造成小型企业孵化器。

洛杉矶犹太社区IKAR多年来一直试图在其犹太教堂同一地块上建造一个经济适用房综合体。但IKAR首席执行官梅丽莎·巴拉班表示，当地的停车位要求使该项目成本过高。

因此，社区改变了方向。今年夏天，IKAR收购了街对面的一家汽车旅馆，将其作为独立的住宅区。

有时，宗教团体为了腾出空间建造住房，会决定完全搬离某处房产。在纽约布朗克斯区，乌尔苏拉修女会将其部分土地租赁给了福特汉姆贝德福德住房公司，这是一家经济适用房开发商。

福特汉姆贝德福德住房公司首席执行官Heng Ly表示，最终建成的是一个拥有500多套住房的经济适用房综合体，为周边地区增添了活力。

埃尔斯顿表示，虽然建造住房至关重要，但失去教堂和其他宗教场所可能会在社区中造成更大的空缺。

他说：“这会产生连锁反应，因为人们会去教堂领取食物救济站的食物，或者参加女童子军的集会，或者邻里协会的会议。在我们社区，我们会在教堂投票。”

怀特希望新建的老年社区能将三一东教堂的精神传承到街对面。教堂计划与房地产合作伙伴共同运营该项目，并为入住的老年人提供服务。

怀特计划指导其他宗教领袖如何利用自家后院的土地。

“在我们举行奠基仪式之后，其他教会的牧师开始打电话给我，说‘嘿，我们可以和你谈谈吗？因为我们也想做同样的事情，’”她说。