Religious organizations across the country are pursuing development on their property. In Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the United Mission Metropolitan Baptist Church is planning a $60 million mixed-use project including affordable housing units. In New York City's Marble Hill, the Iglesia Agua de Vida's site will soon be home to a seven-story, primarily market rate, apartment building, with a space for the church on the ground floor. Some cities are aiming to make affordable housing development easier for houses of worship -- Pasadena is pursuing legislation to remove roadblocks to houses of worship building affordable housing on their vacant lots.
Of course, development is not without controversy. In San Francisco, the Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist and Forge Development are suing the Board of Supervisors after their proposal to build market-rate "micro-apartments" on their property was denied. The Board of Supervisors opposed the project claiming that the $3,000/month units would essentially be "tech dorms" for "transient workers."
Many congregations are impacted by the dynamics of gentrification, where working-class communities of color are displaced as new investment causes rent to rise. A long article in Christianity Today examines how churches navigate gentrification: by moving or closing, adapting to new populations, and/or providing services that help their communities remain in their neighborhood.
In Harlem, the Beaata Le Mariam Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Manhattan's last remaining Ethiopian Orthodox Church, is imminently facing eviction, after the City, from which the congregation had been renting the storefront for $1,267/month, sold the building for $1 to a non-profit seeking to build affordable housing on the site. The congregation is struggling to find alternative space in Manhattan that they can afford, and the neighborhood-based non-profit developing the current site has expressed unwillingness to re-lease to the congregation after construction.
In Newburgh, New York, city officials are launching an inquiry into restoring the city-owned Dutch Reformed Church on Grand Street. Originally built in the 1830s to encourage tourism to the city of Newburgh, the congregation struggled to maintain the structure before moving out of the space in the 1960s. While maintenance issues for houses of worship are certainly a pressing present-day concern, they have historically been an ongoing issue for many congregations.
Religious communities around the world continue to navigate questions around how to worship during the coronavirus pandemic, especially as the threat of future surges looms. Jehovah's Witnesses announced that Kingdom Halls will re-open on April 1, two years after closing them due to COVID, allowing people to worship in person, though virtual services will remain available. Other communities are embracing online and digital platforms for worship; an article in the Forward highlighted synagogues and other Jewish spaces in the metaverse.
In late February, members of the Faith and Credit Roundtable hosted a "pray-in" to end predatory lending in the US, highlighting a verse from Proverbs: "Do not rob the poor because they are poor."
As gas prices rise at record rates, some faith-based organizations are providing help to community members, providing free gas or discounted gas to help people get to work and to visit their families.
The affordable housing crisis persists in the United States. Housing prices are appreciating much faster than income, placing homeownership out of reach for many working-class people. Fortune Magazine published an article claiming that "millenials have aged into the housing market at the worst possible time," as there is record demand for houses, but a severe shortage of affordable housing stock.
Against this backdrop, HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge made the news this week for declaring housing a human right.
The affordable housing crisis also intersects with other inequities: a blog post and report at MZ Strategies examines the mismatched geographies of affordable housing and public transportation; the lack of efficient public transportation near many affordable housing sites prevents working class people from fully participating in their region's economy.
