Waiting for the miracle of church-to-housing development
US cities are facing a severe lack of affordable homes and a marked oversupply of buildings belonging to religious groups
IN 2009, Arlington Presbyterian Church was celebrating more than a century in its Northern Virginia community. It was also facing another, less optimistic, milestone: The congregation, which had boasted more than 1,000 members in the 1950s, was down to fewer than 100. So the church embarked on an unlikely resurrection.
Over the next decade, Arlington Presbyterian would raze its main church and sell the land for US$8.5 million – 20 per cent below market value – to the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing. The nonprofit then built Gilliam Place, a 173-unit affordable housing development. Members of the church now rent worship space on the ground floor of the building, which finished leasing up in 2019.
The project satisfied a need within the church and its members to “do something bigger than themselves,” as the church’s pastor told the New York Times in January.
The idea that excess property owned by religious institutions can be easily converted into a windfall of housing has been an article of faith for the pro-housing “Yes In My Backyard” movement for years. It’s a tempting formulation: US cities are simultaneously facing a severe lack of affordable homes and a marked oversupply of churches, temples, meeting houses, mosques and synagogues, thanks to Americans’ dwindling participation in religious services.
A YIMBY variant known as YIGBY – that’s “Yes In God’s Backyard” – was coined by San Diego housing activists in 2019. The broader mission: Bring faith organisations directly to the front lines of the US housing crisis.
To help religious groups pursue housing projects, local and state lawmakers from California to Virginia have pursued legislation that fast-tracks projects on church-owned property. At the federal level, the Biden White House created a Center for Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships within the Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2021.
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But the expected miracle – unlocking the value of their real estate while rapidly creating more affordable housing in urban neighbourhoods across the nation – hasn’t been delivered with the speed many hoped to see.
“Churches sometimes have it in their mind that they can build new space for themselves, build affordable housing and generate income,” said Mark Elsdon, cofounder of RootedGood, a Wisconsin-based organisation that helps faith-based groups rethink their real estate resources. “Very often, you’re lucky to get one of those. Two would be a huge win. But all three?”
What’s holding up the church-to-housing pipeline? Bluntly, even God’s house has to abide by humankind’s zoning laws. And as more congregations study the idea of converting property, the unique challenges of such projects have become apparent, from lining up financing to overcoming the architectural incompatibility of the buildings themselves.
Even success stories like Gilliam Place suggest how difficult the process can be. As a case study about the project would note, a majority of congregants accepted the idea of turning their “albatross of a building” into a source of much-needed housing for an increasingly costly area. But some members objected and left the church; one tried unsuccessfully to get the 1930s structure listed as a historic landmark to halt the demolition. The property also needed to be rezoned by the county for multifamily residential use.
In the end, it took nearly a decade of work – and about US$71 million from 14 different funding sources – before the first tenants moved in.
The opportunity remains immense. According to a 2023 study from the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley, faith-based organisations held more than 47,000 acres of potentially developable land in California alone. And a recent analysis by the Center for Geospatial Solutions at the Lincoln Institute found that religious groups own roughly 2.6 million acres across the US, with about 32,000 of those in transit-accessible urban areas. At the high end, that amount of land could supply 700,000-plus units of new housing, if subject to high-density development. The group’s director, Jeff Allenby, believes even that analysis understates the true scale of the real estate holdings of religious organisations.
This landscape of faith is undergoing a dramatic transformation, as the US is experiencing a “tsunami of church closings.” The housing consultant Rick Reinhard has estimated that up to 100,000 houses of worship – a quarter of the estimated US total – could shut over the coming decades. As the number of Americans with no religious affiliation grows, nearly all faith groups are experiencing declines in in-person worship. Two decades ago, 42 per cent of US adults attended regular religious services, a Gallup survey from earlier this year found; that number has fallen to 30 per cent today. The Covid-19 pandemic sharpened the decline further, as many parishioners who migrated to online services have yet to return in person.
That new trend has joined longstanding demographic shifts. In older US cities like Boston, Buffalo and Baltimore, neighbourhood churches built for immigrant booms in the 19th and early 20th centuries often sit empty or face closure and consolidation. These properties are often elaborate historic structures that need costly updates, and they might include rectories, convents, parsonages, schools and other related buildings.
Houses of worship in Sun Belt areas like Texas and South Florida, meanwhile, have a different set of challenges and opportunities. These buildings might have sprung up in postwar suburbs, with vast parking lots that fill only on occasional holidays. Now that they’re surrounded by more recent development, church leaders are eager to redevelop excess space for other uses to earn revenue.
“Faith-based communities own a ridiculous amount of land and structures,” said Katie Everett, executive director of the Lynch Foundation. “People are not engaging in their faiths the way they did 50 years ago, and there’s just a surplus.”
The Boston nonprofit, which supports a range of efforts connected to the Roman Catholic Church, worked with the Lincoln Institute to analyse the church’s Massachusetts property and found there was enough real estate to create 140,000 units of affordable housing; they’re hoping to release a statewide plan to do so within the year.
Encouraging such development, Everett added, is something of a moral obligation: “If it’s aligned with everyone’s social justice missions, like it is, I just think it’s irresponsible not to pursue it,” she said.
Elsdon started working in this space while serving as the executive director of a campus ministry center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he helped oversee the construction of student housing. Since he helped launch RootedGood in January 2020, he’s talked to faith-based groups across the country.
“It’s just in the air,” said Elsdon. “Even churches that are doing well should be thinking about using their resources better.”
RootedGood now runs a course to help religious organisations become housing developers; 93 have signed up since the beginning of the year. Among them is the Presbyterian Church in the United States, which rolled out guidance on property development to all its 8,000 churches created in partnership with RootedGood.
In Southern California, where the affordable housing gap is particularly visible, the interfaith community organisation LA Voice has been working with congregations across the city on housing projects; according to executive director Reverend Zach Hoover, roughly 100 are in some stage of development, representing approximately 7,600 housing units.
But efforts to transform land and buildings owned by faith-based groups into housing often run into a familiar set of obstacles. Houses of worship often reside on parcels with special zoning designations that need to get reworked to accommodate housing uses. Neighbourhood opposition often ensues.
“It is surprising how often a neighbourhood of people who have never darkened the door of a church suddenly get very interested in its future and plans,” Elsdon said.
Much of this kind of work centres on vacant or underutilised land, but projects that involve the adaptive reuse of existing structures face additional trials. Stone and brick churches that have stood for a century or more often have substantial deferred maintenance, and their unique designs present considerable difficulties for rehabbers; there’s a reason many get turned into brewpubs, art spaces and music studios instead of apartments.
Religious properties break down into three main categories, according to Stephen Ferrandi, who, along with partner Barb Bindon, cofounded Maryland-based PraiseBuildings, a brokerage that specializes in selling houses of worship.
Rural churches can be the easiest to adapt, since many are simple wood-framed structures. But they often come with cemeteries sited immediately adjacent to the church – a potential turn-off for future tenants and a complication when it comes to installing septic systems and other infrastructure. Suburban churches, with their large parking lots, offer more space for additions and connecting utilities, though it can be more economical to just tear them down and rebuild from the ground up.
It’s older urban churches, which might have plenty of architectural character and potential, that present the most vexing redevelopment challenges. Many lack parking – often a requirement for residential construction. Some have relics or famous figures buried in a crypt. Historic protections can add delays: In Baltimore, for example, the recent conversion of St John’s Episcopal church into office space was held up for a year due to disputes over preserving the stained-glass windows.
Then there are the daunting details of adapting historic structures built as mass gathering spaces into modern dwellings. Large open halls with 70-plus-foot ceilings can fit three or even four floors of housing units by installing a steel superstructure for support, but they’ll require new or expanded plumbing, electrical and ventilation systems. Older buildings lack amenities like air conditioning; old boilers need to be swapped for systems that allow control among individual units. Modern sprinkler systems alone can run US$600,000.
Glorious 19th century landmarks in strategic urban locations can be priced surprisingly low, but that reflects the resources needed to adapt them; so much needs to be invested that the final product is likely to be high-priced condos, not affordable housing. “If money was no object, it would be very easy,” said Ferrandi. “But it’s hard to make the math work.”
Faith organisations – optimistic by their nature – often look past these challenges initially, thinking that good intentions can overcome any barriers. Then they find themselves over their heads.
“I would love to say yes, that some congregations have done this fast and efficiently, but I simply don’t know anybody who has,” said Nikisha Baker, president and CEO of SAMMinistries, a San Antonio programme that works with churches and their properties to help homeless residents. “Congregations lack the breadth and depth of real estate development, the relationships and ability to navigate codes and permitting. How do you compile all of that expertise into a single team working towards a common goal amongst your congregation partners?”
Even churches with property experience can struggle. Bethany Baptist Church in Harlem has spent several years developing housing on church-owned property near its home at 303 West 153rd Street in New York City. Deacon Steven Robinson said one housing project, set to take two years, stretched to seven due to delays with financing and construction; he told a financier that he “had the patience of Job” when it came to seeing the project through.
Robinson said the church had been looking to develop another parcel at 2901 Frederick Douglass Boulevard, seeking to transform the vacant lot into affordable housing. But it’s taken years longer than anticipated. It’s a small site, so only a handful of units are possible. And in today’s financing environment, that means it’s not a moneymaker.
Elsdon of RootedGood cautions congregations to start with the why – think about the reasons behind getting involved in real estate – before wading into the how and the what. It’s common for churches to get embroiled in difficult development issues, and then have to backtrack.
Speeding up the development process requires more legwork and education. Lots of conversion conversations started in earnest around 2020, Lynch said, but organisations need to expect that it will take five years to a decade before wide-scale development really takes place.
It also means looking at every available option for putting underutilised property to use, and not just defaulting to apartments or senior housing. Church land and buildings can often more easily serve other valuable roles in the community, like childcare centres or workspaces.
In the Gulf Shores of Alabama, for example, RootedGood has helped a church turn excess property into a business incubation center. Some churches have rented their commercial kitchens to food entrepreneurs, or created staging grounds for food trucks. Rural churches have special challenges due to distance and population density, but several have found ways to activate their properties and serve unique roles in their community. Elsdon has seen some consider creating EV charging sites in their parking lots, or use facilities to host regional healthcare clinics.
In response to the recognition that realising the opportunities of church-based land remain complicated, more organisations seek to provide the expertise to empower religious groups to move forward. The Center for Geospatial Solutions at the Lincoln Institute wants to further refine its religious property analysis to provide an accounting of what truly is developable land, to make project decisions and financing move more quickly. In San Antonio, SAMMinistries has created the Institute for Social Service Advancement to help train churches in real estate development as well as trauma-informed care.
RootedGood wants to significantly expand its reach, aiming to work with more than 1,000 churches in the next few years. Elsdon believes the work can do more than recentre how congregations think about their roles in the community and adapt their campuses for modern needs. It can help reimagine this vast stock of imperiled social infrastructure and address an ongoing American problem: a desire for alternative places to gather.
“I was voting here in Madison recently, and two polling sites had been crammed into one because one of the churches had closed down,” he said. “Between churches and libraries, I have this worry that we’re going to wake up in 20 years and say, ‘Man, we should build more community centres.’ Well, yeah, we actually had them.” BLOOMBERG
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