Affordable housing in Greater Cleveland is getting harder to find. As an integral part of their communities, churches are aware of the need. Many with vacant land and buildings believed they could help by transforming them into housing. They just lacked the expertise and money to get things started.
Now, six East Side congregations are getting seed money to explore turning their properties into affordable housing.
Enterprise Community Partners, a national nonprofit focused on housing and community development, selected the congregations, which will each receive a $50,000 pre-development grant to help them create plans for mixed-income and other affordable housing. This is the first time the nonprofit’s 20-year-old Faith-Based Development Initiative has been in Cuyahoga County.
Some of our houses of worship have been here for 100 years. How many real estate developers for affordable housing have been around for 100 years and embedded in their community?
Ayonna Blue Donald, vice president and Ohio market leader for the nonprofit Enterprise Community Partners, which just gave $50,000 development grants to six Cleveland churches
The churches receiving grants are:
- Antioch Baptist Church
- Church of the Reform Church of Love
- Mt. Sinai Baptist Church
- Open Door Missionary Baptist Church
- Shiloh Baptist Church
- Union Grove Missionary Baptist Church
The churches will be able to use the grant for such things as a zoning assessment to determine what legally can be built on their land or for a market analysis, which helps in determining if there is demand for the project a church wants to do. Each church gets to work with a real estate development consultant and a clergy coach whose church has already developed a project.
“We could have chosen more,” said Ayonna Blue Donald, vice president and Ohio market leader for Enterprise, adding that 13 churches applied for the grant after completing a required six-month training program. “It was really a funding constraint which narrowed us down.”
Enterprise’s Ohio office, based in Cleveland, had to raise the money for the local program. Blue Donald, a former Cleveland building and housing department director, said she brought the program here because she knew that many Cleveland churches either owned land or were situated near vacant city-owned lots or those in the Cuyahoga Land Bank.
About 510 acres of land in Cuyahoga County are owned by churches or other houses of worship, according to an Enterprise analysis. Within 1/4 mile of these houses of worship are 2,157 land bank parcels, which often can be acquired at nominal costs.
The six churches could develop up to 100 units of affordable housing, according to Enterprise. In their applications for the $50,000 grant, the congregations’ proposals for the land included senior and mixed-income rental housing, reentry housing, workforce housing and for-sale homes. Some of the proposals focused on new construction and others on rehab. These proposals could be revamped or even replaced as the churches go through the detail-oriented pre-development process, Blue Donald said.
Then there is the question of funding since the grant only covers pre-development. She said it is not naive to believe that many of these projects will receive public and other funding, especially since the grant aims to give the churches the resources they need to create solid plans to pitch to potential funders and investors.
“I do think it’s realistic,” Blue Donald said of having their projects fully funded. “But there is also the reality that real estate development takes a long time.”
Enterprise ‘pleasantly surprised’ by the number of churches that want to build affordable housing.
It seemed like divine timing.
The Rev. Dr. Lisa M. Goods, pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church on Scovill Avenue in Central, and the congregation were considering what to do with the six lots the church owns. The parcels, which are behind the church, are also near several land bank parcels.
“We just maintain them,” she said. “They look pretty and cute, but they don’t do anything.
“Our strategic plan has been based on ‘how do we use our building and our land in ways that further our community outreach and our mission?’” she said. “We don’t have an abundance of money, we don’t have an abundance of resources, but we do have land and property.”
Just as she and the congregation were pondering the best way to use their land and building to help the community, Enterprise was launching the Faith-Based Development Initiative here.
The local office knew there was a need among Cleveland-area churches and other houses of worship to develop their land, but they wondered how many would commit to six months of training, Blue Donald said. Each house of worship had to send a senior clergy member and a layperson. During the development training, participants got an introduction to such topics as how to choose a project, which includes effectively assessing its viability. They also learned about the funding sources available to build affordable housing.
Enterprise was expecting no more than 25 houses of worship to participate in the program. More than 40 did.
“We were pleasantly surprised,” she said. “We are a mission-driven organization that’s committed to expanding affordable housing and community development, and a lot of times our houses of worship have that same mission.”
One of the reasons Shiloh’s application stood out was because the church linked the desire to build mixed-income housing with The Midline, Cleveland’s ambitious plan to develop 350+ acres, including more than 200 acres of long-vacant former industrial land on Cleveland’s East Side, into an employment hub. The city believes the district will create 2,500 jobs. The Midline’s footprint includes Central and Fairfax.
“Those people are going to need somewhere to live in our community,” Blue Donald said of the new employees, who are expected to include some relocating from other cities. “Development that can build on that synergy has a good shot of getting funded.”
In addition to constructing mixed-income housing, Shiloh is looking at redeveloping parts of its underused church building to house programs that Midline businesses and workers may need. They include afterschool programs and workforce development programs. The church has long offered community services, ranging from a food pantry to hosting mental health counseling programs. Goods sees building mixed-income housing as an extension of this.
Houses of worship add a dimension to projects that many developers don’t, Blue Donald said. They are often deeply involved in their communities.
“Some of our houses of worship have been here for 100 years,“ she said. “How many real estate developers for affordable housing have been around for 100 years and embedded in their community?”
Shiloh, founded 177 years ago, is Cleveland’s first Black Baptist congregation.
Cleveland’s Black churches have a history of building affordable housing
All of the six houses of worship chosen for the grant are Black churches. Black churches have had a history in many cities of initiating housing and retail development when other developers weren’t interested in their neighborhoods. In Cleveland, especially on the East Side in the 1970s and 1980s, when housing demolition was the norm, Black churches were often the only entities building housing. It was often affordable senior citizen housing. Antioch and Mt. Sinai are among the grant recipients that have built senior housing.
Beginning in the 1990s, often spurred by city incentives, developers built housing throughout Cleveland. More recently, especially in real estate hot spots such as the University Circle area, much of the housing construction has been market rate. Many of the churches that received grants said their development role is important because they have a commitment to affordable housing.
Bishop Willie J. Wimbush Jr. and Pastor Tekisha Wimbush of Church of the Reform Church of Love on Mt. Carmel Road in Buckeye-Shaker are among them. Their plans include constructing mixed-income housing on the five lots the church owns, which are near land bank property. They’re also exploring rehabbing structures for housing.
In addition to being ministers, the couple owns a construction company. Their experience with home improvements and new construction is one of the reasons the church was chosen, Blue Donald said.
Church of the Reform Church of Love’s property includes the church building and a former school that were once part of the old Our Lady of Mt. Carmel parish. The couple’s company has done extensive renovations at both, Pastor Wimbush said. The church currently runs several community-focused programs out of the former school building, including a food pantry and faith-based counseling.
Their plan includes turning it into a community resource center that aims to connect residents with such things as educational opportunities, workforce development, financial literacy programs and mental health and physical health resources, said Pastor Wimbush, a licensed social worker.
“Our goal is to create a safe space that provides stability and a thriving environment where individuals and families from diverse economic backgrounds can live, grow and succeed together,” the Wimbushes wrote in an email to Signal Cleveland. “Through mixed-income housing, we hope to provide quality housing options that promote stability, reduce housing insecurity and both strengthen and empower the community.”
The couple sees development as being more than just about buildings.
“Ultimately, we hope to empower individuals to become self-sufficient, improve economic development, strengthen families and foster a greater sense of community and positive pride,” they wrote. “By addressing both housing and resource needs, we seek to create opportunities that transform lives not just for today, but for future generations.”
