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reasonsforhope · 3 months ago

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"Faced with declining membership, aging buildings and large, underutilized properties, many U.S. houses of worship have closed their doors in recent years. Presbyterian minister Eileen Linder has argued that 100,000 churches may close in the next few decades.

But some congregations are using their land in new ways that reflect their faith – a focus of my urban planning research. Some are repurposing their property to provide affordable housing, as the housing crisis intensifies across the country.

Take Arlington Presbyterian Church in Arlington, Virginia. In 2016, the church sold its historic stone building to the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing to construct a 6-story complex with 173 apartments, known as “Gilliam Place.” The building still houses space for the congregation, as well as La Cocina, a bilingual culinary job training facility and cafe. In Austin, Texas, St. Austin Catholic Parish is partnering with a developer to build a 29-story tower providing 200 beds of affordable student housing, in addition to new spaces for ministry.

Other houses of worship are pursuing similar projects today.

Same mission, new projects

Faith-based organizations have been building housing for many years, but generally by purchasing additional property. In recent years, however, more houses of worship are building affordable housing on the same property as the sanctuary.

This can be done in a variety of ways. Some congregations adapt the existing sanctuary and other faith-owned buildings, while others demolish existing buildings to construct a new development, which may or may not have space for the congregation. Another option is to build on excess property, like a parking lot.

Depending on how a development deal is structured, a faith-based organization may receive proceeds from the sale of its land, or from leasing their property to a developer – funds which they can then spend on ministry or on a new space for worship. If a new development includes space for the congregation, sometimes they rent out those spaces when the space is not being used for worship, which can also financially benefit the congregation.

Faith-based organizations often see these projects as a way to do “God’s work.” In some instances, they include community services beyond the housing itself.

Near Los Angeles, the Episcopal Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Placentia partnered with a nonprofit affordable housing developer – National Community Renaissance, also called National CORE – to develop 65 units for older people. The complex also includes a 1,500 square foot (140 square meter) community center. The city’s diocese has a goal of building affordable housing on 25% of its 133 properties.

For some congregations, these are mission-driven projects rooted in social justice.

In Washington, D.C., Emory United Methodist Church redeveloped its property and constructed The Beacon Center – which has 99 affordable housing units, community spaces, and a commercial kitchen that provides job training for recently incarcerated people – while preserving the sanctuary. In Seattle, the Nehemiah Initiative is working with Black churches in the Central District, a historically African American neighborhood, to redevelop its properties into affordable housing to keep residents from being displaced."

Potential to evolve

As states and cities struggle to provide affordable housing, studies have been conducted from Nashville to New York City on the amount of land faith organizations own, and their potential as housing partners.

In the D.C. metro area, for example, the Urban Institute found almost 800 vacant parcels owned by religious organizations. In California, a report from the Terner Center at University of California, Berkeley found approximately 170,000 “potentially developable” acres of land owned by religious organizations and nonprofit colleges and universities...

When thinking about the redevelopment process, Arlington Presbyterian member Jon Etherton told me, “the call from God to create, do something about affordable housing was bigger than the building itself.”"

-via The Conversation, July 19, 2024

#church #christianity #washington state #california #washington dc #presbyterian #affordable housing #housing crisis #good news #hope

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whataperfectwasteoftime · 8 months ago

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The District Sleeps Alone Tonight - A Songfic

Pairing: None

Rating: General, although my blog is, as always, 18+ only

Word Count: 1.6k

Warnings: angst, breakups, mentions of Teresa x Patrick Jane

Summary: I am a visitor here. I am not permanent.

A/N: @whatsnewalycat said that The District Sleeps Alone Tonight by the Postal Service was a Marcus Pike song and then I listened to it during a thunderstorm and imagined a whole scene based on it. I’m not sure whether or not to call this a songfic, but there are several direct quotations from the lyrics and the “plot” of this follows the song pretty closely. For best results, listen to this song while you read. The lyrics are posted at the end of the fic <3

Masterlist

A lone figure cuts through the wet fog, his collar turned up and shoulders hunched forward in a futile attempt to ward off the elements. The faded leather jacket may have been sufficient enough for even the coldest winter days in Austin, but against the drizzle and wind in this new climate, it only succeeds at keeping him dry. Mostly. The notion that he may not be as well-prepared as he had originally thought himself to be grates on him, shame niggling at the back of his spine at the realization that he doesn’t even know where to go to purchase a winter coat.

A gust of wind sends thousands of miniscule, stinging droplets of water into his face, making him grimace, and Marcus wonders to himself how it could possibly still be raining with temperatures so close to freezing.

It seems as though he’s stopped at every street crossing, because of course he is, and he squints against the endless line of headlights and brake lights extending in either direction, blurring and distorting in the soggy weather, as he waits for the traffic lights to turn.

It gets dark so early here.

His phone buzzes against fingers shoved in his pockets, and he fishes it out to read the text message that flashes on the screen.

Sorry, I think you might still have my spare key? If so can you mail it back? Thx.

The cavity of his chest feels empty and raw as his vision seems to darken around the words, twisting and warping them much like the rain and the headlights. Marcus pockets the phone again without responding and stares blankly at the ground. He thinks about the endless, pitch-black tunnels stretching out in every direction beneath him, wondering how many feet of asphalt and concrete there are between the bottoms of his feet and the top of the cavernous expanse of the DC underground. He imagines the sidewalk crumbling, sending him down into the unknown depths.

In reality, he takes the escalator across the street.

The station is buzzing with life–as it always seems to be, no matter the hour–and Marcus watches vibrant humanity swirl around him. Two teenagers sharing the same pair of headphones. A tired-looking mother with two young children. A woman in a business suit, eyes glued to her phone. A disheveled old man, smelling of booze, that everyone subconsciously steps around without even a look in his direction.

Marcus fishes in his pocket for his metro card, his fingers bumping against the badge he had immediately unclipped from his lapel upon leaving work–the one that spells out a single word with big block letters, just another indignity upon all of the other indignities he’s suffered this week.

When he had asked why his regular badge–the one he’s clipped on his lapel every morning for over a decade–wasn’t sufficient, the bored door attendant tried to explain about building access being tied to his network credentials, which were tied to something called “Active Directory,” and it couldn’t be done right now because they were experiencing downtime after a backup server failed, and Marcus didn’t really understand what any of this meant or why this hadn’t all been set up beforehand, but there was hardly a point in trying to get answers to his questions because none of it would speed up the activation of his new credentials, nor the delivery of his new laptop, which wasn’t arriving until Monday.

None of this was done with malicious intent, of course; nor is he the only new employee affected, going by the line of badged Agents standing in line every morning this week to get the day’s temporary access, but Marcus still feels like a marked man. Separate. Apart. Singled-out.

I am a visitor here. I am not permanent.

It only compounds upon that same feeling inside of him: that feeling that he’s on some sort of strange vacation, and that soon he’ll be able to return home. Home. To his little duplex in Austin, where he shared one wall with Mrs. Ruth Galloway, the eighty-five year-old widow he had a cup of tea with every Sunday at two pm. To the city he knows, the field office where he’d spent most of his career, with familiar rooms and familiar faces… where she walks through the familiar halls. With him.

Marcus swallows thickly, shoving the painful lump down into his stomach.

No, he can’t go home.

The spacious condo certainly doesn’t feel like home when he opens the door to find the large living room dark and cold and foreboding, although that’s probably mostly his fault–the walls are still lined with moving boxes, most of them still half-full with his belongings, messy and unkempt after rummaging through them to find the essentials and leaving the rest.

When he had toured the building, two weeks before the move, the large residence felt full of dreams, of possibilities, rather than empty and sterile. Marcus remembers going from room to room, his head filled with images of an idealistic future: a king-sized bed, his and hers towels in the pristine bathroom, a bookshelf large enough to fit all of their books in the first spare room, and, in the second spare room… a crib.

Now, they’re just two empty rooms.

The fridge is empty too, Marcus suddenly remembers, having not had a chance to find a grocery store yet. He’s been living out of takeaway containers, not even bothering to open the box of dishes and silverware. He takes out two styrofoam boxes–one half-filled with leftover Pad Thai, the other with chicken Tikka Masala, and dumps them side-by-side into the same container with a half-grimace.

Beats going back out into the weather.

There are two beers left in a six-pack bought three days ago, so he opens one and takes a long sip while the microwave heats his food. He thumbs through the mail he left on the kitchen counter absentmindedly, finding mostly junk advertisements and coupons, but a takeout menu for a Sushi restaurant catches his eye. As he sets it on top of several other menus he’d accumulated over the last couple of days, the microwave beeps, alerting him to the fact that his dinner is ready.

Marcus sits at the kitchen table and flicks on the TV in the living room, setting the channel to some random rerun of a syndicated sitcom that he doesn’t recognize, mostly for background noise. He pulls a somewhat-soggy copy of the Washington Post he snagged from the breakroom from his messenger bag and flips through the pages without really reading any of the headlines until he finds the crossword. He halfheartedly fills out the clues as he eats, the canned laugh track from the show filtering in and out of his awareness. The clue ‘strips in geography class (6 letters)’ finally causes him to rub at his temples, setting down the pen as he rises to his feet to toss the empty container and bottle in the trash.

The other beer is popped open, and Marcus settles down on the couch, flipping through channels. He pauses briefly on a black and white film–Roman Holiday, he recognizes after a minute or two of watching–but when Ann and Joe kiss on the riverbank, he quickly switches to a basketball game instead. Keeping the volume low, he lets his mind wander as he blankly watches the teams run back and forth on the court, not all that interested in the score.

He needs to buy food. He needs to find somewhere he can get a winter coat. He needs to find a post office, he suddenly remembers, thinking of the text message from earlier. He checks the time–late, probably too late. Wait, no–it’s two hours earlier in Austin. Two beers is hardly enough to even feel the alcohol, but apparently it’s enough to dull his sense of judgment, because he finds himself pulling out his phone. The call goes straight to voicemail, and he tries not to think about the possibility that she’s screening her calls because of him.

“Hi, uh… Hi. I’m sure you’re busy, but I got your message earlier about the key, and… I think I do have one, yeah, but I’m not sure… where, exactly. I’m still in the process of unpacking, got a couple more boxes to go through,” Marcus says, looking at the large pile of boxes in front of him and knowing he’s got many more throughout the house. “I’ll make it a priority to find it and send it off this weekend.

“It’s really nice here,” he continues, seemingly not able to stop the flow of words once they’ve started. “There’s a Thai place down the street that you’d like, but the spring rolls are so-so. Not like that one place we found in Ridgetop, remember that one?” Marcus chuckles softly to himself, hardly recognizing the sound of his own laughter, and it sends a pang down into his chest. “I–” he stutters, blinking rapidly. “I know things weren’t perfect between us. The–the timing wasn’t right, and there were a lot of… of uh, obstacles in our way, but I’ve been doing–” he huffs humorlessly, “–a lot of thinking over the past couple of days, and I think I understand now. I saw a life that I wanted, and… I pushed for it. I pushed too hard, without–without thinking about how you felt about it, about whether you were ready, whether you even wanted a life with me. You were… you were trying to tell me, that whole time… and I didn’t listen. But I… I think I finally see it–why I was the one worth leaving. It was never going to be me, it couldn’t have been. I ignored all the signs that I was pushing too hard, not listening, pressuring you…” He takes a shaky breath, and lets it out slowly. “I’m sorry. You were right to leave. I–I wish you the best, Teresa.”

The District Sleeps Alone Tonight

The Postal Service

Smeared black ink

Your palms are sweaty

And I'm barely listening

To last demands

I'm staring at the asphalt wondering

What's buried underneath

I'll wear my badge

A vinyl sticker with big block letters

Adhering to my chest

That tells your new friends

I am a visitor here, I am not permanent

And the only thing

Keeping me dry is

You seem so out of context

In this gaudy apartment complex

(Where I am) A stranger with your door key

Explaining that I'm just visiting

(Where I am) And I am finally seeing

Why I was the one worth leaving

D.C. sleeps alone tonight

You seem so out of context

In this gaudy apartment complex

(Where I am) A stranger with your door key

Explaining that I'm just visiting

(Where I am) And I am finally seeing

Why I was the one worth leaving

The district sleeps alone tonight

After the bars turn out their lights

(Where I am) And send the autos swerving

Into the loneliest evening

(Where I am) And I am finally seeing

Why I was the one worth leaving

#Marcus Pike #Marcus Pike fanfiction #The Mentalist #songfic #pedro pascal #Spotify

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