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For nearly twenty years, Rev. Angeloyd Fenrick has been on a progressive mission to help provide tools to homeless people to help them improve their lives. The Faith-based Development Initiative, in turn, helps provide her – and leaders in dozens of other houses of worship in the DC area --with tools needed to manage a housing-oriented ministry.
Columbia Learning International
It all started, she says, when she was working near the Anacostia Metro station and regularly passed a group of apparently jobless men congregating nearby. She remembers praying daily: “Lord, Why don't You send someone to help these men find other options?”
At some point in 1991, Fenrick realized that she was the one she'd been requesting. After nine years of street ministry, she began operating a small group of rental units for formerly homeless individuals. Her vision for the Columbia Learning International Ministries, located at 3754 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., SE, is to expand those eight units – and related support services -- to 50, and then 100, eventually “impacting the whole of the east coast.”
First, though, Fenrick decided, “I had to educate myself.” And that's where the Faith-based Development Initiative – a collaboration of Enterprise Community Partners, East of the River Clergy-Police-Community Partnership (ERCPCP), and Georgetown University land-use researchers -- entered the picture.
Emmanuel Baptist Church
Rev. Clinton W. Austin found that he and Emmanuel Baptist Church, 2409 Ainger Pl., SE, were similarly in need of education as they enter the earliest stages of an affordable housing re-development project. The church owns a 24-unit apartment building that it wants to use to serve the neighborhood. The church has not yet decided whether to improve the existing structure or tear it down and build anew. The neighborhood is in need of many kinds of development, including affordable housing, and the church has created a non-profit community development corporation, seeking input from congregants and neighbors about next steps.
“We want to help improve the surrounding community,” Austin explains. “We believe that to 'have life and have it more abundantly,' means attending to the physical as well as spiritual. But we are a religious organization,” without a lot of development tools.”
Faith-based Development Initiative
Enterprise Community Partners, now with ten offices around the country, was founded by Patty Rouse and her late husband, developer Jim Rouse, in 1982. The DC area office opened in 1998. Since then, Enterprise has invested $400 million in helping to create or preserve affordable homes. The Faith-based Development Initiative has provided over $12 million in grants, loans and equity to about two dozen houses of worship; 600 units of affordable housing are in the works or already completed.
David Bowers, vice president of Enterprise's DC operation, says that affordable housing is a challenge in a market as costly as DC 's. At the same time, a Georgetown University study found that churches east of the river own land worth tens of millions of dollars. And that land, says Bowers, “is often undeveloped or underdeveloped.” The faith-based collaboration is designed to help houses of worship bring affordable housing where it is most needed.
Enterprise provides grants of up to $10,000 a piece – with houses of worship raising 25% matching funds -- to help faith-based groups assess the feasibility of various housing projects. Often the grants allow contracts with third parties providing expertise – such as zoning law – that houses of worship typically lack. Enterprise also offers grants, loans and Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Equity to help houses of worship acquire property or complete renovations.
In addition,the Faith-based Development Initiative has begun presenting what Bowers calls a “buffet of resources” to aid in various stages of the development process. Some houses of worship need help with visioning and “ownership” support. Many need asset management support to handle the long-term commitment rental properties require. Legal services, help accessing public and private dollars, and organizational assessments are also on the “buffet.”
ERCPCP, led by Rev. Donald Isaac, now has a staff consultant to help houses of worship conduct needs assessments and take organizational steps, such as seeking non-profit status. The Initiative arranges for land and zoning searches as well as demographic and marketing studies.
The Initiative also has a “bullpen” of development partners willing and able to work with houses of worship. “The fact is,” Bowers explains, “that some development partners just can't wait out 'all those deacons meetings.'” The Initiative tries to avoid frustration on all sides by interviewing potential partners first.
A Range of Local Projects
The Initiative works with houses of worship from Reston, VA, to Montgomery County, MD, and across the District. Some churches in Prince George's County own 50 acres or more. Many in DC own just a few acres or even a single lot. Some organizations have a particular interest in housing for citizens returning from prison; others have a special concern for seniors or families.
With the Initiative's help, ERCPCP rehabilitated a 14-unit apartment building at 4115 First St, SE, as transitional and permanent housing for ex-offenders.
Good Success Church, 4401 Sheriff Road, NE, has purchased a number of formerly trash-strewn lots near Kane Place and 44th Street and plans a mixed-use, neighborhood-serving development. Pastor William H. Bennett II and members of Good Success Christian Church have been active participants in District planning for the future of Deanwood. The Initiative has provided technical assistance, says Bowers.
The Initiative connected Emmanuel Baptist church with legal services and other resources. Equally essential, Austin reports, was the “help to assess what knowledge [the church] did not have.”
The Initiative paid for a market study to help Emmanuel Baptist, as well as the neighboring Allen AME Church and Young's Memorial on Alabama Avenue, make informed development decisions. “They are helping us explore ways to adapt local properties to better meet the needs of the area,” says Austin.
Fenrick began working with the Initiative, she says, when they “put out the call to area churches to preserve local affordable housing.” She and other church leaders who responded “discussed our visions and our goals....We saw that we needed a lot of background knowledge.” The Initiative, Fenrick explains, “gave us a development vocabulary and taught us how to use it.”
In addition, she says, “Enterprise inspires us to execute what we've learned. And their emphasis on green building has really lifted the consciousness of people in the neighborhood.”
For more information about the Faith-based Housing Initiative, contact East of the River Clergy-Policing-Community Partnership, 202-373-5767 or www.ERCPCP.org; or Enterprise's Washington office, 202-842-9190 or www.enterprisecommunity.org.
Columbia Learning International invites participation from “anyone who wants to lend their expertise,” at 3754 Martin Luther King Jr Ave., SE, 202-574-1610. |
