Religious groups statewide are looking for ways to combat the rising costs of housing and the demand for more affordable options.
Darrell Brooks is one of the faith leaders acting on his community鈥檚 desire to address the housing crisis.
Brooks is the chief executive officer of the Beulah Land Development Corporation in New Haven. It鈥檚 associated with the local Beulah Heights First Pentecostal Church.
The church has established more than 50 affordable apartments and homeownership opportunities there in the last 30 years, Brooks said.
鈥淲e do ministry, and so housing is something that we did not do,鈥� Brooks said. 鈥淔aith really guides our principles. Faith guides why we do this work.鈥�
New Haven鈥檚 Dixwell and Newhallville neighborhoods were previously filled with homeowners and people invested in their community, Brooks said.
鈥淥ver time that changed drastically, and people began to disinvest in their community,鈥� Brooks said. 鈥淎s a result of that, blight and disrepair and crime was rampant.鈥�
Beulah was one of several faith-based organizations that recently spoke at a virtual seminar about the intersection of faith-based groups and affordable housing.
Several religious communities have rallied around the issue of affordable housing in recent years. Tiny, temporary housing sprang up in the backyard of a Catholic organization in New Haven and in Hebron there are plans for a mixed-income housing development on church land.
While some groups, like Beulah, construct housing, others advocate for their community鈥檚 housing needs.
鈥淲e are not the housing experts, but we are the folks who when congregations say, all right, ministry is important, but we want to make concrete, long term, systemic change. How do we do that? That's where we sort of come in and help,鈥� said Cori Mackey, executive director of the Center for Leadership and Justice.
The Hartford-based nonprofit helps mobilize nearby religious communities, advocating for zoning changes and legislation that would increase housing.
鈥淲e've supported some statewide efforts, legislative efforts, but what we found is that so many of our members have this sort of deep desire to see affordable housing happen,鈥� Mackey said. 鈥淲e really just knew so very little about how you actually get to affordable housing.鈥�
A new toolkit guiding to help establish and advocate for housing could help. It was recently released by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), a nonprofit that connects local groups with funding to complete community improvement projects.
鈥淚t's about creating the building blocks for understanding,鈥� said Ruth Jones Nichols, the group鈥檚 national executive vice president. 鈥淲e work to frame the issues first and foremost, related to housing supply and the crisis across America, particularly for low to very low-income households.鈥�
Across the U.S., faith-based organizations own a significant portion of land. In New York City, more than 92 million square feet of land across the city鈥檚 five boroughs is owned by faith groups, Jones Nichols said.
鈥淭he reasons why there is a lack of affordable housing, whether it's rising construction costs for materials, labor and land that make it difficult to build affordable homes, zoning and regulatory barriers in some communities,鈥� Jones Nichols said.
