Yeah, this is huge affordable housing and assault
neighborhood have total seven machines. And like I said
again during the nighttime as well. Built on land that
used to look like this always get teary eyed on this.
But I think for all of us certainly I felt it was a
faith journey for nearly 60 years. The spot that now
occupies this apartment in alexandria Virginia was home
to the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection 10 years
ago, church leaders like Betsy Faga noticed declining
membership, a big empty building and a growing
community need. We've had a food pantry for for a
number of years now and so Uh during the food
distribution, before we made some decisions, you know,
the people working there would ask what what do you
need and it was always, you know, food and shelter. So
they worked with a developer to lease the land,
demolished the church and build the 113 unit apartment
building along with a new ecologically friendly churc
Our developer was kind enough to agree to pay the full
ground lease up front. And that's the money we used to
build the church. They also got hundreds of new
neighbors in the process. We had a christmas come for
christmas gift and we even did that in the plaza and
had hot chocolate for many churches. It isn't solely
about loving your neighbor, but being good stewards of
land that typically goes unused for decades, anywhere
from 48,000 to 108,000 units of rental housing could
potentially be built on the land just in those five
jurisdictions in the D.M.V. Region that, combined with
declining memberships nationwid makes church is the
perfect solution to a growing housing problem,
according to enterprise community partners VP. David
Bowers. When you've got so much need and you've got a
community that's sitting on a resource that could be
activated to meet that need. Why would we not work with
them to try to help activate that land I do know this
is sacred ground in Atlanta Georgia. Greater piney
grove baptist Church pastor William flipping senior
recognized the possibility year ago With a dream to
use 50 plus acres of unused church property to build
affordable housing for seniors. And we're now looking
at a waiting list of over 7000 people. A recent repo
from the federal reserve called Atlanta unafford
based on the medium income, the housing rates are going
up, taxes are going up, but incomes are not. Some
investors have come in and pretty much swooped up a lot
of the housing of the persons who could possibly almo
afford housing. In March, 80 El Mayor Andre Dickens and
Wells Fargo announced an initiative granting $1.3
million to 15 faith based organizations to build
affordable housing. The Grove team will assist those
churches. The language can make your eyes crosses like
read the King James version at midnight Bauer says
that's also where his team comes in to help churches
navigate, lawyers funding zoning laws, sometimes the
zoning may restrict what can be done where a house of
worship is. And so the ability to build residential, u
you know, or how much residential can be built
sometimes that's, that's a barrier. There's also
pushback from neighbors. Someth tom lures with ST
Francis center in Denver, experienced people woul
refer to the people who were going to live there and
pretty um insulting fat, you know, manners, describing
people as scary. Um folks group was looking to turn a
former church building into a dormitory style living
for a new house people, but it took some convincing, we
put together a good neighbor agreement. We, as owne
of this property, intend to be good neighbors to all
those in this surrounding area for churches that are
able to pull it all off. Pepperdine professor o
theology and sustainability. Ch Duran says there can
be ecological upside when you do renovation efforts and
you can make things more energy efficient, you can deal
with water treatment systems or water storage systems,
you can think about redoing um electricity to have
solar panels or geothermal energy. There are also the
ethical benefits. One of the residents who moved into
the building said, this is the most dignified. I feel
in years, God has not dropping ramen noodles from the
sky, He's giving us opportunity through what we do with
ministries to be able to serve the people, the team at
the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection agree all the
passages we know from the bible of God saying Love, thy
neighbor, and our purpose is to help take care of our
neighbors. A non conventional approach to one of the
oldest commands Amber strong, Newsy in alexandria
Virginia.