Some churches have partnered with other churches or organizations to advance the cause of affordable housing in their communities.

​The Beloved Community Village | Denver, Colorado

Tiny homes have become a thing recently. They offer downsized but fully equipped homes for those who, no longer enamored of over-sized houses, seek to simplify their lives. But they also have potential as temporary housing for homeless people.

That potential is being realized in the Beloved Community Village, sponsored by the Colorado Village Collaborative in Denver, Colorado. The Beloved Community originally consisted of 11 tiny homes on city-owned land on the north side of town. Recently eight more units have been added to the mix. They are movable, as required. And they are indeed tiny: built on an 8 x 12 platform with a 3-foot extension in front, they offer a 77 square foot bedroom with a small closet. They are wired for heating, cooling, and lights. They cost about $5,000 to $6,000 each to build. Shared bathroom, shower, kitchen, and dining facilities are located in a double-wide trailer on site, which also serves as a common meeting room. 

​Eleven tiny home units have been in operation since 2017. They have served 21 homeless people. In contrast to homeless shelters, they offer privacy, a place to call home, a greater level of security, and a meaningful opportunity for self-governance. The village maintains a Village Council made up of residents; the Village Council is assisted by an Advisory Council made up of community members and representatives of the Village Council; both answer to the Colorado Village Collaborative. As of late 2019, seven village residents have graduated from the program, connected to jobs and permanent housing. According to Pastor Cole Chandler, Director of the Colorado Village Collaborative, the ideal tenure in a village tiny home is one year—typically enough time to stabilize, re-organize, and connect to local employment opportunities. Thus far, 100% of the people served in the Beloved Community have found employment at the other end of the program.

​The Tiny Homes Beloved Community Village got its start in 2017 on the initiative of the Beloved Community Mennonite Church of Littleton, Colorado. But the church did not do it alone. It partnered with the Interfaith Alliance of Colorado, Denver Homeless Out Loud, Bayaud Enterprises, Radian Inc, and Mennonite Disaster Services. The Colorado Village Collaborative was born of the effort, and seeks to establish additional tiny home villages for homeless people in the state of Colorado. It hopes to establish a women’s tiny home village in metro Denver by the end of 2020.

​Detroit Catholic Pastoral Alliance | Detroit, Michigan

Some call it a riot. Others call it a rebellion. Call it what you will, the event that took place in streets of Detroit in the summer of 1967 brought much destruction to Detroit neighborhoods that had already been severely damaged by racist policies and practices. Shaken by the uprising, a number of Catholic priests who lived and worked in Detroit began to meet regularly on Thursday mornings to talk about what it meant to advance a Christian presence in the city. They were known as “The Breakfast Club.” They were soon joined by lay pastoral assistants and religious women.

On September 20, 1989, the Archdiocese of Detroit moved to close 56 parishes in the city of Detroit. The Breakfast Club organized opposition to the closings. Despite their efforts, 35 Catholic churches in Detroit were shuttered. To continue to do the needed work in the parishes, members of some thirteen Catholic parishes formed the Detroit Catholic Pastoral Alliance, which was officially incorporated in 1990. 

The Alliance got its start in affordable housing when a house was donated to a family in the Gratiot Woods neighborhood. The Alliance pitched in with the rehabilitation work. Since then, according to John Thorne, Executive Director of the Alliance, the organization has raised and invested $170 million dollars in the neighborhoods of east Detroit. Its office building, on Gratiot Avenue, was formerly the home of the Miami Vice After Hours nightclub. On the avenue the Alliance now runs a business incubator, offices for other non-profits, and a bakery that provides employment for returning citizens in a new building with eleven apartments units of affordable housing set at 30, 40, and 50 % of Area Median Income. 

​But that’s not all. When it discovered that many seniors were moving out of the Gratiot Woods neighborhood in search of greater security and quality housing, it teamed up Cooperative Services, Inc, and O’Brien Construction in 2008 to win a HUD 202 grant for the construction of senior housing. The Gratiot Woods Senior Co-op Apartments now boasts of sixty-five units of affordable housing for low-income households. In 2019 it completed the construction of “9100 on Gratiot,” a building with 36 apartment units and 10,000 square feet of commercial space on the first floor. In the wider region, it sponsors a youth tutoring program in partnership with six local public schools as well as an early vocational skills course for elementary children. It sponsors a city-wide anti-racism program. It also oversees a Senior Network program of activities in neighborhoods with over 70% seniors. ​

​Esperanza | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Esperanza has its origins in a partnership of small, low-income, mostly Protestant Hispanic churches that came together for mutual assistance under an organization called the Hispanic Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity.

Founded in 1986, Esperanza initially focused on housing counseling for Hispanic families. Since then it has grown exponentially in both size and scope. Its headquarters are located on 5th Street, the main street of the Hunting Park neighborhood of north Philadelphia, in a renovated industrial building. Taking its inspiration from Matthew 25:40, Esperanza is driven, according to its mission statement, “by the biblical mandate to serve and advocate for ‘the least of these’,” and aims to “strengthen Hispanic communities.” It does so through education, economic development, real estate development, and advocacy.

​Esperanza’s 9-acre campus with 300,000 square feet of institutional buildings include a charter middle school and high school serving some 1,500 students (Esperanza Academy), a branch campus of Eastern University (Esperanza College), and a distance learning charter school for K-12 education (Esperanza Cyber Charter School). In addition, the campus houses an art gallery, a library, a chapel, a performing arts center with arts programming, and a technology center. The entire site represents a $15 million investment in the community and employs some 400 people.

Esperanza operates a Hunting Park commercial corridor program that has administered over $300,000 in storefront improvement mini-grants and helped organize the Hunting Park Business Association. It built a Rite Aid Pharmacy, which resulted in $3.5 million investment in the district and drew the first national employer into the neighborhood. In 2012, it invited community service organizations and residents to develop a strategic plan for the revitalization of Hunting Park, resulting in the Hunting Park Neighborhood Strategic Plan 2022. Because communities of color and high poverty rates typically suffer most from environmental abuses such as industrial pollution, litter, air and water pollution, Esperanza also sponsors environmental action to work toward a clean and green Hunting Park.

​While Esperanza maintains a vigorous and comprehensive housing counseling service, it has expanded its work into real estate development to help create affordable housing. It has built 36 new townhomes on vacant lots, six senior apartments, a community laundromat, and rehabbed over 100 homes. One of its most recent ventures—a rehab of a factory building on 5th Street—resulted in the Roberto Clemente Homes, which provides 38 units of affordable housing and 5,000 square feet of commercial space. To complement its residential developments, it established a community garden as well (La Cosecha Latina Community Garden).

Esperanza was born in a partnership of churches that realized that they could do more together than they could apart. Esperanza continues to enjoy support from local congregations by way of prayer, money, volunteer labor, advocacy, and the identification of properties as potential sites for redevelopment.