Making Housing Happen, 2nd Edition: Faith-Based Affordable Housing Models

By Cascade Books

The growing housing crisis cries out for solutions that work. As many as 3.5 million Americans experience homelessness each year, half of them women and children. One in four renters spends more than half of their income on rent and utilities (more than 30 percent is considered unaffordable). With record foreclosures and 28 percent of homes "underwater," middle and low-income homeowners are suffering.
Many congregations want to address this daunting problem yet feel powerless and uncertain about what to do. The good news is that churches are effectively addressing the housing crisis from Washington State to New York City--where an alliance of sixty churches has built five thousand homes for low-income homeowners, with virtually no government funding or foreclosures.
This book not only presents solid theological thinking about housing, but also offers workable solutions to the current crisis: true stories by those who have made housing happen. Each story features a different Christian denomination, geographic area, and model: adaptive reuse, cohousing, cooperative housing, mixed-income, mixed-use, inclusionary zoning, second units, community land trusts, sweat equity, and more.
Making Housing Happen is about vision and faith, relationships, and persistence. Its remarkable stories will inspire and challenge you to action. This new edition includes significant new material, especially in light of the ongoing mortgage crisis.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Sep 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781621894520

Book preview

Making Housing Happen

Faith-based Affordable Housing Models

second edition

Edited by

Jill Suzanne Shook

Foreword By

DR. John Perkins

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MAKING HOUSING HAPPEN

Faith-based Affordable Housing Models

Second edition

Copyright ©

2012

Jill Suzanne Shook, All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers,

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Cover art by Donna Shook is a water color painting depicting (top to bottom): GlenCastle (Atlanta, GA), rehabbed brownstone in Lawndale (Chicago), Communidad Cambria (Los Angeles, CA), Chapel (Broetje Farms, Washington State), and Nehemiah two-family home (South Bronx, NY). Used with permission of artist, www.donnashook.com.

Cascade Books

A Division of Wipf and Stock Publishers

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Cataloging-in-Publication data:

Shook, Jill Suzanne

Making housing happen : faith-based affordable housing models / Jill Suzanne Shook with a Foreword by John Perkins—

2

nd ed.

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p. ; cm.

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. Housing—United States—Finance—Case studies.

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. Self-help housing—United States—Case studies.

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. Housing rehabilitation—United States—Case studies.

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. Low-income housing—United States—Case studies.

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. Home ownership—United States—Case studies.

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. Housing—Religious aspects—Christianity—Case studies.

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. Church work with families—Case studies.

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. Christian leadership—United States—Case studies. I. Perkins, John,

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Contributors

Introduction

Part One: The Foundation

Chapter 1: Our Nation’s Housing Crisis

Chapter 2: Ownership, Land, and Jubilee Justice

Part Two: Tangible Structures

Introduction to Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Habitat for Humanity and Peachtree Presbyterian Church (Atlanta, Georgia)

Introduction to Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Jubilee Housing (Washington, DC)

Introduction to Chapter 5

Chapter 5: An Ex-Prison (Atlanta, Georgia) and an Abandoned Hospital (Chicago, Illinois)

Introduction to Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Change from the Inside Out (Los Angeles, California)

Introduction to Chapter 7

Chapter 7: The Point (Denver, Colorado)

Introduction to Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Raising Lazarus from the Dead (Chicago, Illinois)

Introduction to Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Mustard Tree Co-op (Detroit, Michigan)

Introduction to Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Temescal Commons (Oakland, California)

Introduction to Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Vista Hermosa (Pasco, Washington)

Introduction to Chapter 12

Chapter 12: HOME, (Orland, Maine)

Introduction to Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Urban Homeworks (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

Introduction to Chapter 14

Chapter 14: The Nehemiah Strategy (South Bronx, New York)

Part Three: Intangible Structures

Chapter 15: Setting the Stage

Chapter 16: Hopeful Trends and Calls for Change

Chapter 17: Getting Started

Endnotes

An important book on an urgent topic. May the church answer this powerful call to action.

—Ronald J. Sider President of Evangelicals for Social Action

"This is the best book I’ve read on housing for years, probably since Bowerly’s classic The Poor House (Southern Illinois University Press). The issues emerge with clarity. The amazing range of resources and documentation is superb. Above all, the theological vision comes with power and passion. Somehow Shook has gotten some of the most experienced people in the whole urban world to share their practical and inspiring stories in successive chapters, making it a must read for anyone serving our Lord in cities today."

—Ray Bakke

"The lack of affordable housing is one of the major contributing factors to poverty in the U.S. Making Housing Happen collects the stories of diverse, local faith-based programs that are making a difference in their communities. I commend it to all Christians looking for ways to work at improving the conditions of people in poverty—which should be all Christians."

—Jim Wallis

"Making Housing Happen is an excellent and greatly needed text! It is a book that will be most welcome in many circles of readers who care about the housing crisis in America. Besides providing a solid historical, theological, and human rights rationale for affordable housing, what makes this book special is its comprehensive and paradigmatic (models) of faith-based and church-oriented approaches for a housing ministry. Its in-depth faith-filled stories and testimonies of successful housing ministries should prove inspirational, instructive, and challenging to all Congregations endeavoring to ‘seek the Peace of the City’ (Jer.29:7)."

—Eldin Villafane Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

An invitation to imagine how the provision of safe, affordable, energy-efficient, and human-scale housing might be liberated from the dictatorship of market forces to serve as a sign of God’s new order. I can think of few issues more urgent, and few books that interpret it with such theological wisdom.

—Richard Slimbach Azusa Pacific University

In this volume, Jill Shook brings together information about the breadth and severity of our national shortage of affordable housing with the biblical themes and mandates that make this very much the church’s business. A wealth of contributors of diverse talents and broad experience share the stories of successful, church-based projects to provide alternatives, along with the insights gained therein. It reminds one of the Johannine admonition, ‘Let us love not in words on the tongue, but in deed and truth.’

—Sondra Wheeler Wesley Theological Seminary

"Most Americans, particularly those in the religious sector, would be deeply moved to learn that 1.37 million American children are homeless. It is indeed a vulgar society that does not safeguard its young. Coming straight from the Word of life, Jill Shook shakes the foundations of our lives in Making Housing Happen, a work that moves from description of the problem to prescription for the problem. Ours is not a lack of know-how so much as a lack of will. If we will it, the Creator will breathe into the clay of commitment the wherewithal to make a garden existence. Jill Shook invites us to inhale."

—Cecil L. Chip Murray University of Southern California

To my mother, Donna Shook,

who has been my biggest fan and lifelong mentor with her exuberance for life,

hospitality, and love for neighbor

To my father, Richard Shook,

whom I adored, who taught us to dream big and work hard

To my husband, Anthony Manousos,

who loves my passion for justice

And to all the authors in this book

and affordable housing advocates who inspire me

with their prophetic passion and vision for healthy, housed communities

Foreword

Dr. John Perkins

In 1942 when I was 12 years old, I received fifteen cents for a day of backbreaking labor in Mississippi. Though a poor, uneducated, black youngster, I was smart. I quickly figured out that ownership of the wagon, the mule, and the land would lift people from poverty. Since that day, I determined to struggle with solutions that would break the crippling poverty cycle. I have committed my life to the kind of community development across the US and beyond that challenges the church to bring about a more equitable redistribution of land and community resources. And this is what Making Housing Happen: Faith-based Affordable Housing Models is about.

I have had the honor and privilege of knowing and mentoring many of the authors in this book—including Jill Shook, who lived and worked with us at the Harambee Center in Pasadena, California. Jill has taken this book beyond my own focus on community development to include models of community organizing—a process that provides a voice for the faith community to address public policy. This book is about both public and personal transformation. The shared-equity models like the community land trusts that Jill includes are on the cutting edge of housing policy today. By including cohousing, cooperative housing, and community land trusts, Jill speaks to the core of so much of the loneliness, isolation, individualism, and materialism that is destroying our society.

Making Housing Happen goes to the root of the housing crisis, a crisis that today has contributed to an all-time high in homelessness, but is also affecting middle- and low-income populations.

Yes, I figured out early on that land ownership and the skills to manage it would go a long way in shaking off the bonds of poverty, but God had to first get at my heart and show me how to walk in his grace and love. The process of personal and public transformation is unique to each person and each community. Each story in this book gives us a glimpse of God’s expression in the world. Just as the Bible tells stories of God’s work in individuals, communities, and nations, this book tells God’s story of how affordable housing has been created by churches across our landscape. Principles of best practice are embedded into these stories . . . as well as principles of faith. This book tells how God has orchestrated housing ministries beyond what small and large churches dared to dream could be done. They stepped out, trusting in God’s provision, believing that God cares deeply that everyone has a decent, safe, and affordable place to call home.

This book powerfully unfolds some of the best theological thinking that is foundational for an effective housing ministry—how land is a central theme of the Bible and is at the core of the gospel. It also shows the grip of racial issues that still play an integral part in housing inequity today, keeping people in poverty—isolated and without hope.

Making Housing Happen provides hope. It shows how denominations from coast to coast have dreamed outside the box and come up with creative housing solutions that are cutting across economic and racial boundaries, and stand as demonstrations of God’s love.

Acknowledgments

As a team player, I couldn’t have accomplished this book without the eyes, ears, hearts, and sharp minds of many gracious people who joined the team. My dearest friend Terry Carter deserves the team-player-of-the-year award. Since that first gathering in May 2002, when Bert Newton, Diane Harris, Ed Mahoney, Jude Tiersma-Watson, Mark Schmidt, and Paul Smith came together to discuss how to make the dream of this book a reality, Terry has given her heart and soul to making this book a success. During the last year of writing the first edition of this book, we met each Saturday from about ten in the morning to ten at night—either at her place in Koreatown in Los Angeles or my place in Pasadena. We grappled with how to truly hear each other, seeking to climb into each other’s brains on how we viewed our outline, word choices, and key concepts. It was excruciating . . . but rather than tearing us apart, we grew closer. DarEll Weist joined that initial team, providing a broader voice to the mix. Carmen Berry gave direction on the book proposal. Dwight Ozard helped to secure our publisher.

Beatrice Carranza, Kimitra Flowers, Diane Harris, and Mark Schmidt spent hours transcribing interviews. Then, just as the final editing push came, a dog up the street bit off the tip of my index finger! Coming to my rescue, Diane Lewis, Lisa Knofel, Mary and Grace Lilienthal, Karen Peacock, Rebecca Straayer, Brian Ward, Marlene Yoder, and Susan Young became my hands as they typed editorial comments into chapter drafts. Tom Baden bought me a computer with voice recognition software. Steve and Linda Kane graciously loaned me their laptop—enabling me to recreate a tiny office from kitchen tables in Maine and Church of the Saviour’s guest house in Washington, DC, to coffee shops in the west.

Fuller Professor Mark Lau Branson brought Richard Beaton, Quentin Kinnison, Dr. Richard Slimbach, and Pastor Inman Moore together for a read on the first draft of the theology chapter. Fuller Old Testament professor John Goldingay and Matt Rindge, who taught at Azusa Pacific, also reviewed this chapter.

Bill Branner, Terry Flood, Peter Drier, Ray Bakke, and Joe Shuldiner provided essential pieces of research. Michele Zack helped us pare down the Rude Awakening chapter to a reasonable size.

Many others spent hours editing and/or attending reads on the first edition: Mary Allen, Doris Anderson, Lynn Anderson, Maggie Brandow, Tom Flanagan, Timothy Fowler, Daryn Kobata, Alex Linna, Ayanna Bridges, Albert Durstenfeld, Eric Getty, Esther Cannon, Dorthea Tillford, Kurt Florman, Musiki Glover, Eddie Boylan, Jerome Hannaman, Pastor Henry Johnson, G. Alan Kingston, Regina Korossy, David Lewis, Diane Lewis, Claire Lewis, Pastor Camelia Joseph, Robbie McPherson, Raquel Marquez, Pastor Linda Marshall, June Miley, Don Miner, Pastor Inman Moore, Mary King, Cindy Neubreck, Tim O’Connell, Dayna Olsen, Paul and Nelly Patag, Joan Peace, Derek Perkins, Tanja Sacco, Mark Schmidt, Donna Shook, Donna Sider, Reggie Simon, Blair Thompson, and Katie Tocce. Sharon Calkins, my walking partner; Tephillah Chi, my roommate; Susan Young, my massage therapist; and Deb Schafer from church, each went the extra mile in editing multiple chapters. Steve Pelletier went the second and third miles by doing a final read on all the chapters, making indices and double-checking the footnotes. Beatrice Carranza and Terry Carter were especially helpful in obtaining copies of quotes from their original source.

The housing crisis was acute when Making Housing Happen first came out in 2006; but when the impact of Great Recession finally hit, it was clear an updated version of the book was needed. About the same time that I signed a publishing contract with Wipf and Stock in the spring of 2011, I met Anthony Manousos, a Quaker writer and editor, and we fell in love. Wedding planning pushed any serious work on updating the book until after our honeymoon. In reality, I couldn’t have done this project without Anthony by my side. His writing, editorial, and thinking skills have pushed this book to the next level of excellence. In the process of editing this book, he has come to know intimately my heart and passion. I deeply appreciate his patience, sacrifice, and generous help.

I also appreciated how the extra eyes to read the first edition helped me to see the chapters from other perspectives, and I decided to have another read. Steve Lamb, who shares my passion for secondary dwelling units on single-family properties; Geoff Hom and Newton and Kim Chan, whom I know from the San Gabriel Valley Family Promise; and Mark Schmidt have each read chapters and gave their keen input. Jana Heirendt, my amazing sister, went the second mile to edit the introduction.

During both editions, others helped indirectly through their prayers and monthly contributions to my support. My mother’s Bible study group got involved in praying for very specific requests during trying episodes. I missed numerous social and family events—at times feeling like a hermit—a rather tough role for an off-the-charts extrovert!

I owe my biggest thanks to those who have contributed chapters to this book. They are my heroes and inspiration. Without their stories and years of investment in making housing happen, this book would not exist.

Contributors

Roger Bairstow currently serves as an Executive on Broetje Orchard’s managing Board, helping the business balance its social responsible agenda. He oversees the company’s affordable housing operations, Snake River Housing Inc. and C.A.S.A. LLC, and directs Mano à Mano, a non-profit dedicated to asset building for low-income and disadvantaged populations. His work emphasizes the company’s business-as-ministry model. Prior to arriving at Broetje Orchards, he was an Assistant Professor with Oregon State University Extension Service, where he initiated micro-enterprise programming and directed a local leadership development program for low-income and minority populations. Roger has worked in Oregon, Michigan and Pennsylvania implementing community economic development programming. He has eight-years experience conducting international development work in Senegal, Kenya, Guatemala and Costa Rica. A father of three wonderful girls, Roger lives with his wife Suzanne in Walla Walla, Washington.

J. R. Bergdoll Jr., AICP, was project manager of Temescal Commons Cohousing during development and construction, and he remains an active owner. Since 2000, Bergdoll has been managing real estate development, land acquisitions, and government funding for two Habitat for Humanity urban affiliates—East Bay, in the Oakland area, and now South Hampton Roads in the Norfolk area. He earned a BS in Architecture from the University of Virginia and a Master of City Planning from the University of California at Berkeley. He worked for the San Francisco Planning Department in urban design, neighborhood planning, and project review and was a leader of missions for his local church in Oakland, California, while completing the certification for the American Institute of Certified Planners. In 2010 he joined the board of the Housing Ministries Group, a national non-profit corporation of Christian development professionals dedicated to promoting residential communities like Temescal Commons.

Marian Bray has authored more than twenty books and more than 150 stories with various publishers, including David C. Cook, Chariot Books, Scholastic, Zondervan, Harold Shaw Publishers, Tyndale House, Doubleday, Houghton Miffin, and Augsburg Books and in various Christian and secular magazines. Marian was a college instructor with the Children’s Institute of Literature, Learning Tree University in California, and Biola University, and has instructed workshops at various writing conferences. Marian is passionate about animals, especially horses and guinea pigs.

Terry Carter has worked for numerous nonprofit organizations, including several years as the Marketing Manager for Century Housing, one of the largest affordable housing lenders in Southern California. She has worked at two international relief and development agencies, World Vision and Food for the Hungry. She has participated in community organizing efforts, including serving on the Housing Strategy Team of One L.A., the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) affiliate in Los Angeles. She attended Biola University and graduated from California State University at Fullerton. She currently works for the Service Employees International Union in Los Angeles, which advocates for low-wage workers and their families.

Shane Claiborne is an author, activist, and founding partner of The Simple Way, a radical faith community in Philadelphia (www.thesimpleway.org). Shane graduated from Eastern University and studied at Princeton Seminary. He spent a ten-week stint with Mother Teresa and a year at Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago. Shane serves on the advisory board of the Christian Community Development Association. He writes and travels extensively, speaking about peacemaking, social justice, and justice.

Millard Fuller (January 3, 1935—February 3, 2009) was founder and former president of Habitat for Humanity International, one of the top twenty house builders in the United States. In 2005 he started the Fuller Center for Housing, with offices in Americus, Georgia. Habitat has helped more than 500,000 families in more than 3,000 US cities and 82 other countries. More than 2.5 million people now have safe, decent, affordable shelter because of Habitat’s global work. Author of nine books about his life and work with Habitat for Humanity, Fuller received the Medal of Freedom from President Clinton in 1996 and was named the 1995 Builder of the Year by Professional Builder magazine. Fuller received honorary doctorates and achievement awards for his leadership toward meeting the goal of eliminating poverty housing worldwide. When he passed in 2009, he was buried on the hill where Koinonia founder Clarence Jordan was buried.

Daryn Kobata is an editor and writer with great interest in poverty and human rights issues. Currently the social media and web officer at Episcopal Relief & Development, the international humanitarian agency of the Episcopal Church, Daryn has also worked in communications with Food for the Hungry in Kenya and the US, and with World Relief in Darfur, Sudan. She holds a BA in English from the University of California, Davis; an MA in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary; and an MPA in international public and nonprofit management and policy from New York University.

Andy Krumsieg is co-founder and the current director of the Jubilee Christian Development Corporation in St. Louis, Missouri, in partnership with Leroy Gill Jr., pastor of Jubilee Community Church. Andy graduated from Wheaton College, majoring in biblical studies. Served at Lawndale Community Church in Chicago, and co-founded Lawndale Christian Development Corporation. He is married to Debbie, who grew up in the Congo as the daughter of missionaries. They have four children, Ben, Christy, Aaron, and Caleb. Caleb, born in St. Louis, is the sixth generation of Andy’s family living in the same neighborhood.

Robert C. Linthicum is a retired Presbyterian urban pastor who has been involved in community and broad-based organizing since 1967. Presently, he is a leader in the Inland Empire Sponsoring Committee, a new organizing effort of the Industrial Areas Foundation. For eleven years, he directed World Vision’s urban ministry in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, training organizers to develop community organizations in 28 Global South cities. Over a 47-year career, he has pastored city churches in Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, and Milwaukee. He is Professor Emeritus of Urban Ministry at Eastern University in Philadelphia, and has just completed a two-year ministry as interim pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Pomona, California, a highly-intentional, incarnational, and mission-focused church. He has taught more than 17,000 pastors, mission leaders, and students from more than seventy cities in the principles of community and broad-based organizing since 1985. Linthicum has authored eight books, most recently Building a People of Power: Equipping Churches to Transform Their Communities (2006).

Bob Lupton has invested almost forty years of his life in inner-city Atlanta. In response to a call that Bob felt while serving in Vietnam, he left a budding business career to work with inner-city youth. They sold their suburban home, and moved to the inner-city Atlanta, rebuilding neighborhoods where families can flourish and children can grow into healthy adults. He has developed two mixed-income subdivisions—creating housing for hundreds of families—organized a multi-racial congregation, started businesses, and more. Bob is an engaging storyteller, strategist, and author. He has authored numerous books, most recently, one with the provocative title Toxic Charity. Bob has a PhD in psychology from the University of Georgia. He serves as speaker, strategist, and inspirer with those throughout the nation who seek to establish God’s shalom in the city.

Ed Mahoney works to create a healthy home environment for abused and emotionally disturbed children at the residential Hillsides Home for Children in Southern California. He earned degrees in Religious Studies and English at Westmont College, Santa Barbara. He completed his Master’s from Regents College in Canada.

Anthony Manousos is a Quaker, an author, teacher, and peace activist who has edited books and the official magazine for Western Quakers. He serves on the board of several nonprofits, such as Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, the American Friends Service Committee, the Parliament of the World’s Religions, and the Christian and Interfaith Committee of Friends General Conferences. His books include A Western Quaker Reader (2000), Compassionate Listening: The Writings of Gene Hoffman (2003), EarthLight: Spiritual Wisdom for an Ecological Age (2006), and Quakers and the Interfaith Movement (2010). He is married to Jill Shook, whom he met during a Palm Sunday peace parade in Pasadena, California. His blog: laquaker.blogspot.com.

Edward F. Moncrief has spent his entire forty-two-year career in non-profit housing development and finance; most recently as the executive director of Neighborhood Housing Services Silicon Valley. He retired from this position in July 2011. He now works as a consultant to housing organizations. During his younger years, he was a Franciscan friar, studying for the priesthood. After leaving seminary, he earned a Master’s of Social Work. He has also studied law, real estate, and mortgage financing. He is a published writer and poet. Among other positions, he was the director of El Porvenir, an early self-help housing project launched by the American Friends Service Committee with farm workers of the San Joaquin Valley. From 1980 through 1995, as founding executive director of Community Housing Improvement Systems and Planning Association, Inc. (CHISPA), he oversaw the development of more than seven hundred homes for farm worker families of the Salinas Valley.

Mary Nelson is President Emeritus of Bethel New Life, a faith-based community development corporation on Chicago’s low-income west side. Bethel developed over 1,200 units of affordable housing, brought in more than $110 million of new investments into a credit-starved community. She chairs the board of Sojourners, and presently serves on the board of Christian Community Development Corporation. She formerly served on the boards of Woodstock Institute and Center for Neighborhood Technology. She currently coordinates Loyola University’s (Chicago) Masters in Social Justice and Community Development and serves on its faculty and the faculty of Asset Based Community Development Institute. She is the author of the book, Empowerment.

Bert Newton is a writer and Gospel-based activist who lives in Pasadena, California. He blogs at www.urbvil.org and www.mennoweekly.org/blog/byline/bert-newton/. After 9-11 he began the Palm Sunday Peace Parade. He is author of Subversive Wisdom: A Socio-Political Dimensions of John’s Gospel, published in 2012.

Lowell Noble was called into missions in Appalachia. He received his MA in religion from Seattle Pacific College, an MA from Hartford Seminary, and an MA in anthropology from Wheaton College. He received a Specialist in Arts Degree in 1975, then taught sociology and anthropology at Spring Arbor College. He is the author of From Oppression to Jubilee Justice (2007). He and his wife Dixie volunteer six months of the year at Antioch Community in Jackson, Mississippi, working closely with Dr. John Perkins as the training (education) director for the Spencer Perkins Center.

Susan P. Ortmeyer is a writer living in the Santa Cruz Mountains in Northern California, with her husband, John Neff, a scientist. Susan has an active interest in issues affecting the poor. She graduated from University of California–Berkeley in 1987 with a BA in history and from UCLA Law School in 1993. Susan worked for ten years as a labor and employment lawyer and for four years specializing in employment discrimination investigations. She was the legal director with Public Interest Investigations, Inc., then began a career as a writer, potter, and homemaker.

Jill Shook earned her BS from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, MA in Biblical Studies from Denver Seminary, and a Doctor of Ministry in Transformational Leadership for the Global City from Bakke Graduate School. She served on the boards of the Pasadena Neighborhood Housing Services and the Golden Rule Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Jill was a campus minister, serving campuses in California and Oregon, and worked with Food for the Hungry International designing and implementing a program for work-teams from Berkeley to Harvard to serve in developing nations. She designed Teaching like Jesus workshops for pastors and teachers, which she taught in Bolivia and Mexico. Jill founded Students and Tutors Achieving Real Success (STARS), a ministry of Lake Avenue Church, where hundreds of volunteers work with at-risk students. She helped to begin a citywide network: Parent Project, to prevent gang violence, and a countywide network: Family Promise, to house homeless families. As a catalyst with Missions Door, she has helped shape housing policy, including an inclusionary zoning that has produced 460 affordable units. Her Web site is www.makinghousinghappen.com, and her blog: www.makinghousinghappen.net.

Thomas and Christine Sine are the cofounders of Mustard Seed Associates, which encourages Christians to create imaginative new models of life and faith including new forms of housing, community, and lifestyle. Tom is a consultant in futures research and planning for both Christian and secular organizations. He has authored many books, earning the Christian Booksellers Association’s Gold Medallion Award and Christianity Today’s Book of the Year List in 1996. Christine is an Australian physician who developed and directed the healthcare ministry for YWAM’s Mercy Ships and has also written several books. They coauthored Living on Purpose: Finding God’s Best for Your Life. They are adjunct professors for Fuller Theological Seminary in Seattle. Christine’s newest books are To Garden with God and GodSpace. Tom’s latest book is The New Conspirator: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Time.

Paul A. Smith serves with InnerChange, a Christian order among the poor. Inner Change ministries flow from relationships formed when teams move into poor neighborhoods. The emergence of local leaders in Los Angeles resulted in Comunidad Cambria, a tenant-controlled nonprofit corporation. Comunidad Cambria received the National Association of Professional Organizers Community Service Award in 1995 and Southern California Association of Non-Profit Housing Project of the Year in 1998. Smith has an AB from Harvard University and a MS from the California Institute of Technology.

Ronald Spann was rector of Church of the Messiah for twenty-five years in Detroit. The parish spread faith-based development through its Housing Corporation. Spann led the effort to form the Islandview Village Development Corporation. He is director of Christ Church Grosse Pointe Spirituality Center and on the faculty of CREDO, a clergy wellness initiative. He is a charter member of the Christian Community Development Association and serves on its advisory board.

Ray Stranske currently serves as the director of housing and economic development for Newsed Redevelopment Corporation in Denver Colorado. He earned degrees from Biola University and Denver Seminary. He co-founded Hope Communities, Inc., which has built or renovated more than 650 units of affordable housing in the urban Denver area. Ray has been an active member of the Five Points Business Association, and a board member of Housing For All, Colorado Housing Consortium, US Bank Community Advisory Board, and the Enterprise Foundation network (since its inception in 1982). Ray has also been active with many state and local housing development associations, such as Colorado Housing Affordable Partnership, and Housing Colorado. He is currently chairman of the board of Project Education Sudan.

Marilyn Stranske is project director of the PICO Colorado Clergy Action Network, a state-wide, non-partisan project affiliated with the PICO National Network to engage clergy in prophetically addressing issues of justice that are affecting families in their congregations and communities. She co-founded Hope Communities with her husband, Ray. Marilyn formerly served as president and national organizer of Christians Supporting Community Organizing. She earned a BS from Northwestern University and a MEd from Georgia State University. The Stranskes met in an urban church in 1974 in the neighborhood where they still live. The joys of their lives are their children, Jon and Clarissa and their spouses, travel, and their church, St. John’s Episcopal Church.

Lee Stuart directed SBC Nehemiah—the development entity of South Bronx Churches from 1998 to 2005. Prior to taking on the leadership of the Nehemiah program she had been lead organizer of South Bronx Churches Sponsoring Committee, Inc., a broad-based organization affiliated with the Industrial Areas Foundation. She currently serves as program officer for the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) in Duluth, Minnesota. Lee received her PhD in Ecology from San Diego State University and the University of California Davis and completed postdoctoral work at Virginia Tech in biology. She was one of the founders of SHARE—Self Help and Resource Exchange, an ecumenical food assistance and community development program operates in several communities in the United States, Mexico, and Guatemala.

Richard Townsell served as the executive director of the Lawndale Christian Community Development Corporation (LCDC), and has overseen 30 million dollars of housing development. He and LCDC have received more than a dozen awards for the housing development including the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (2001) as the Community Builder of the Year; the Leadership for a Changing World Award from the Ford Foundation (2003); and a National Award for Social Justice Leadership (2004). He was named the Distinguished Fellow at the twentieth anniversary of Leadership Greater Chicago. He holds degrees from Northwestern University, Spertus College in Chicago (MA in urban housing development) and a Certificate in Business Administration from the University of Illinois-Chicago’s Business School. He was an adjunct faculty member of Northwestern University, Wheaton College, and the University of Illinois at Chicago. He currently teaches math at a charter school, North Lawndale College Prep.

DarEll Weist has been a campus minister, theological professor in Sierra Leone West Africa, an Annual Conference administrator, and a local pastor and foundation president. He was the president and CEO of the 1010 Development Corporation, a faith-based affordable housing corporation from 1991 to 2007. The corporation’s housing received a prestigious Southern California award from Union Bank. Weist has a BS from Westmar College, Le Mars, Iowa; a MDiv from Garret Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois; and a RelD from Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California. He is currently a retired United Methodist clergy.

Introduction

Going Upstream

Jill Shook

Too often our outreach projects are catching bodies as they come over the waterfall, but we don’t go up to see what is causing the situation and then seek to prevent it. —Ray Bakke¹

A staggering number of people in our country are struggling with a need as basic as shelter—and many are falling over the waterfall, as Ray Bakke suggests—yet there is remarkably little public discussion about affordable housing. Since the first edition of this book appeared in 2006, America’s housing crisis has grown to historic proportions. With over six million foreclosures and four million home loans seriously delinquent,² low-income homeowners have been disproportionately affected, and their property values have declined at nearly twice the rate of middle-class families.³ Many have been forced to rent, putting a squeeze on vacancies and pushing the rents above renter’s ability to pay. The number of homeless people is rising, and shelters are overwhelmed. Housing prices have dropped precipitously, making them affordable for those who have enough capital; but banks are reluctant to lend, especially to low-income buyers. As a result, this crisis has actually exacerbated the need for quality affordable housing.

This book will help you see how congregations are preventing people from going over the waterfall—not only by catching them as they fall, but also by going up stream and finding out why they are falling. Those about to fall over the edge must be caught before the damage caused by broken homes, homelessness, ghettoization, and poor living conditions take devastating lifelong tolls on children—our future. But more is needed than damage control. There needs to be systemic changes at the source of the problem.

However, the affordable housing crisis is so pervasive, complex, and daunting that most of us feel paralyzed before considering what we can actually do to help alleviate this problem.

This book provides hope. Making Housing Happen illustrates in concrete ways how congregations and faith-based groups developed affordable housing in their communities. It challenges us to overcome our acceptance of the damage caused when communities are stratified—when people with resources are disconnected from people of need. It shows how the cycle of poverty can be broken.

These groups have redefined affordable housing by dispelling negative images of some of the past low-income housing efforts, and have proven it is an effective tool for improving communities. Faith-based models are typically local, so the community provides an impetus for excellence and a commitment to best practices. Although essential, affordable housing by itself it is not enough; it needs to be part of a comprehensive community-building approach. This is most clearly illustrated in Urban Homeworks, a Minneapolis-based project (Chapter 13).

While faith-based housing meets only a small slice of the need for housing in this country, what it provides is not insignificant. Even small projects have become models that influenced public policy in profound ways. For example, when the Quakers became involved with Self Help Enterprises little did they know it would become a tool for funding through the Rural Housing Development for small US communities today (see Introduction of Chapter 3).

Done well, faith-based affordable housing is a testament to God’s love and care. The added faith element restores individuals and communities through initiatives rooted in biblical principles. For example, since this book first came out in 2006, the 1,000 Nehemiah Homes, built for low-income buyers by the churches in South Bronx in one of the most distressed areas in the US, didn’t have a single foreclosure. Overall, the foreclosure rate for church-based for-sale affordable housing is less than one percent.

My Journey Upstream

I share my own story here at the request of many of my readers. It is nothing extraordinary, which is the beauty of it. Like you, as I’ve simply lived my life, God provided experiences and people that charted my course. My hope is that you will see how God has worked in your own life and dare to dream all that is possible.

The journey that led me to become passionate about community transformation and affordable housing began in an unlikely place. I grew up in Yorba Linda, California, a rural community in Orange County that was white, middle class, and conservative. Not one black person attended my high school. My parents were middle class and we lived in a series of comfortable homes surrounded by orange groves and peach and avocado orchards. In my teens I had a profound encounter with Christ and acquired a deep love for the Bible.⁴ I traveled to Latin America with family vacations, as an exchange student, and later with mission work. I learned Spanish and fell in love with Latin music and culture.

This book and the solutions it showcases are rooted in principles I learned from my career as a campus minister, my theological training at Denver Seminary, and my graduate work at the Bakke Graduate University, where I earned a doctorate in Transformational Leadership for the Global City. I’m grateful for my theological mentors such as Don Davis, Vernon Grounds, John Perkins, Bob Lupton, Ray Bakke, Ched Meyers, Lowell Noble, and Ross and Gloria Kinsler, among others who have helped me see that central to the gospel and the teaching and practice of Jesus is redemption of all of society: the land and laws that govern its use; those who make the laws and those who live under them. For the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God (Rom 8:21).

I have spent most of my life with one foot planted in communities of need and the other in seeking to understand what the Bible teaches regarding justice, then designing appropriate ministries around my discoveries. For example, while attending a graduate program at Multnomah School of the Bible in Portland, Oregon, in the late 70s I met the Garcias, with whom I would later help to found a shelter for migrant workers in Woodburn, Oregon. One family lived under a tree in the dead of winter. The image of a child found there with her socks frozen with urine still haunts me. My goal was to expose students to injustices that migrant workers suffered—especially regarding the lack of decent housing.

While at Multnomah a campus minister shared about his work with Campus Ambassadors, a ministry of Missions Door. I was impressed how this group focused on two sides of righteousness—personal holiness and public holiness (social justice). I set aside my dream to be a missionary in Latin America, knowing that I needed to learn much about justice in my own culture before exporting my faith abroad. For over fourteen years I have been a part of Missions Door, which shares the gospel of Christ on campuses and in low-income areas across the US, and internationally. As a campus minister in San Jose and Fullerton, California, and then Salem, Oregon, during my summers I attended Denver Seminary.

The dream to live in Latin America persisted. So in the late 1980s I worked with Food for the Hungry International (FHI). I heard about a 2,000 acre ranch in Sonora, Mexico, where FHI trained Hunger Corp volunteers to serve in developing nations around the world. The summer of 1985 I ended up moving into a 1960s van, slept on a cot behind the ranch house on that property, and involved myself in many aspects of the work. I will never forget the day we gathered perhaps forty villagers in the local school in an ejedo (a small Mexican village). Using a chalkboard we brainstormed the needs of their village, then their resources. One campesino had a truck, some who worked at the local cement factory could get a discount, some offered food from their gardens, and others had relationships with government leaders. Once we had exhausted the lists, we worked through a process of setting priorities. Since no one in the village had a latrine, I thought for sure that would be a high priority, but they wanted a basketball court! Rather than impose our agenda, we invited US teams to support theirs. This principle of community engagement is especially incorporated in the sections titled Daring to Listen.

The vocational secondary school on the ranch was planned using this same process of community engagement and cultural sensitivity. Adobes, unlike brick and mortar homes, had a stigma as a poor person’s home. But one village saw their value: thick adobe walls slowly collect heat during the day to produce warmth at night, and conversely cool down at night to create a comfortable temperature for much of the day. One US work team, together with the villagers, stomped enough mud to create several adobe buildings. We exemplified green before it was in fashion. For cooling systems, flying buttresses were placed around the school so that at all times shadows were cast on the building. Our underground apartments were a prized location for teams since they stayed cool all day. My interest in alternative affordable building materials is further explored in Chapter 16.

Impressed with such wise use of local resources, which created a learning lab for local labor and US work teams, I signed up to further develop and implement a program for FHI. I designed a ministry through which US university teams served together with nationals in the Dominican Republic, Kenya, and Mexico. Working side-by-side with hard-working and fun-loving campesinsos, and Kenyans, students learned aspects of justice that dispelled stereotypes. The Americans could easily see that the poverty they witnessed had nothing to do with laziness, but rather resulted from a broken governmental system. I longed to see similar boundary-breaking relationships build bridges of hope between churches and low-income communities in the US.

Turning Point

In 1989 I felt drawn to Pasadena to do further academic studies at Fuller Seminary. I was also eager to learn from John Perkins, an African-American Christian community development practitioner whose teachings had profoundly influenced my life and thinking. I wanted to see if the principles I learned about community development in Mexico could be applied in the US.

At that time the neighborhood surrounding Harambee Center had the highest daytime crime rate in Southern California. It was called blood corner because so many drive-by shootings occurred due to failed drug deals; residents were held captive in their homes. There was little hope for change. Perkins started the Harambee Center in Pasadena in 1982 to help transform this neighborhood the way he had helped transform low-income communities in the Deep South. He wanted to test the biblical principles that worked in rural Mississippi in an urban setting:

• Relocation—moving to or remaining in a community of need;

• Reconciliation—between God and people across all ethnic and socio-economic boundaries; and

• Redistribution—allowing for all to enjoy access to God given gifts and resources.

As these principles were applied in communities across the US, another important organization emerged: Christian Community Development Association (CCDA), which Dr. Perkins founded together with Coach Wayne Gordon (see Introduction to Chapter 8). Each year thousands of Christians attend CCDA conferences and institutes to learn from each other how to love our neighbors by living out these principles in under-resourced communities. CCDA has been a major influence in my life as well as an inspiration for this book.⁵

Dr. John Perkins became my mentor during this critical period of my life. I had known of him through a talk he gave in the early 80s titled Going though Samaria. Perkins spoke about John 4 and how Jesus didn’t avoid Samaria like most Jews of his day. Rather than circumvent those deemed as despised half-breeds, Jesus intentionally went through the bad part of town. As I listened to Dr. Perkins, I felt I was sitting at the feet of Jesus. He told about the many cultural and religious taboos Jesus broke by speaking not only to a woman, but a Samaritan, who was also considered immoral since she had had five husbands and was now living with a man. Jesus saw through her painful past to her heart and loved her. He listened and responded to her questions and valued what she had to give. Jesus also had genuine needs; he was thirsty and exhausted. The Samaritan woman had the pail he lacked to get water. An authentic exchange took place. Jesus received a drink of water; in return he gave her living water. She left her pail and ran to tell her world this wonderful news. Dr. Perkins wove his own painful story in with hers. As a Black man raised in Mississippi, with a history of racial prejudice and violence against him, he told how the love of Christ broke through all these barriers. Dr. Perkins showed in this story how Jesus demonstrated that the cycle of pain could become a cycle of hope and community transformation. I listened to Dr. Perkin’s message over and over, and I made so many copies of that little cassette tape to share with friends that I wore it out.

Dr. Perkin’s interpretation of this story changed my life and how I did ministry. The gospel of Jesus became more alive in me. This story gave me practical tools on how to believe in and honor others, to hear their stories, and value their service and assets.

Living next door to Dr. Perkins and his wife Vera Mae, I saw firsthand how they lived the gospel. I not only got to know him, but also the African American community for the first time in my life.

My middle-class friends were amazed that I was happy living in this terrible neighborhood, but I loved it. As I biked around, I was reminded of places in Mexico I had come to appreciate. Northwest Pasadena has a vibrant street life: children playing, neighbors talking together, music blaring. The neighborhood is diverse, colorful, and alive, and I dreamed of moving there.

By then I was in my late 30s and yearned for a place to connect me with my roots, where I could plant fruit trees, garden, and see the mountains. A house of my own seemed impossible until a friend from church convinced me I could afford a loan on my modest missionary salary and part-time teaching job.

But where could I find an affordable home in wealthy Pasadena, known for the Rose Parade? My realtor showed me a small home that I could afford. When I showed my parents this possibility, my father urged me to buy a larger home with a yard and offered his financial help. As my realtor and I searched, nothing seemed right. On the way to a Bible study for singles at Lake Avenue Church, I was intrigued by a sign announcing a workshop entitled Servant Partners and allowed my curiosity to divert my path. It was at this workshop that I first encountered Bob Lupton, a Christian community developer who later inspired me to write this book. He explained how his family had intentionally moved into the poor part of Atlanta, Georgia, to be a neighbor.

As I listened to Bob’s stories, I again felt as if I was sitting at the feet of Jesus. God was speaking to me about where I was to buy a home. I immediately told my realtor we were looking in the wrong part of town; we headed into northwest Pasadena. But like many Pasadenians, my realtor had not been to this dangerous part of town. I had biked all around this area, so I led the way. And God showed us both which home it was to be.

Some of my church friends were concerned that my move to this low-income area was unwise because they felt property values would decline. Others were afraid even to come to my home. My parents became fearful when they realized that my home was in a predominantly black neighborhood. As my parents became friends with my neighbors, myths about blacks were dispelled and fears dissipated. They gained respect and formed friendships with my neighbors. Ever since then I’ve been hosting neighborhood gatherings and hundreds of church friends and neighbors have danced together in my driveway, celebrating the day I picked up the keys.

While my own income and parents’ generous help with the down payment made the mortgage more manageable, I still needed supplemental income. Like many low income people, I managed to afford a home by taking in roommates. Roommates solved the housing affordability issue for me—and my low rent helped my roommates. Community is a high priority for me, so to live in my home meant meeting together weekly for prayer or a meal and involvement in our neighborhood and together we grew in our faith.

Opportunities

Living in northwest Pasadena has given me