Bloustein School researchers publish report on affordable housing in U.S. faith land
Released on March 13, the paper documents how churches, synagogues, mosques and other religious institutions are converting “faith land” into affordable housing and community spaces, and what that means for the future of housing and public policy.
“These are really mission-driven projects which is what makes them a little different than other developments,” Mian said. “The congregation is motivated and inspired by faith to build affordable housing but also by financial concerns and supporting the congregation.”
Mian spent the past 20 years looking at how congregations have used their housing from a sanctuary building to a new use. From becoming harder to manage to a decline in religiosity, she explored how religious groups have repurposed their land and their assets to help their community.
The researchers described “faith land” as any land owned by a religious entity. “Think of churches, or sometimes even schools, even parking lots, if they’re next to … religious buildings,” Sahu said.
For their research, the team said they visited a church in New Brunswick that underwent “adaptive reuse.” This meant that the building still functioned as a church, while parts of its structure had been converted into apartment units, preserving historic architecture while still addressing local housing needs.
Mian and her associates built a database capturing 200 housing developments built on faith land across the United States. What started out with Google searches of “church turned affordable housing” became meticulous research of checking county tax assessor records to verify ownership and determine whether land was sold, leased or donated, they said. According to Mian and the group, they are currently crowdsourcing to gather data from other developments they may have missed.
The research team also had to standardize the language after the initial research to reconcile inconsistent terminology. For example, they had to ensure that terms including “Catholic,” “Catholic Church” and “Catholicism” weren’t treated as entirely different categories.
Beyond housing, they also discussed that projects built on faith land also incorporate community rooms and multi-use spaces for creative organizations to rent out. “Something that would be really cool to keep in mind for the Rutgers community or anyone in general, is that these spaces are trying to remain connected to the community around them,” Sahu said.
The researchers noted that technical gaps exist in the management process: Pastors and other religious leaders often need more information on connecting with experts to allow their housing plans to come to fruition. They expressed the desire for their findings to encourage and guide more of these collaborations, widening the pipeline for faith land developments across the country.
“A lot of these projects require technical assistance and capacity building and so there’s space for municipalities to kind of provide that support for housing of worship to do this work,” Mian said. She expressed that the research’s goal was to help these municipalities “imagine and dream of what is within the realm of possibility of what can be done on faith land.”
By offering information to bridge gaps in technical information and sharing the effectiveness of ideas such as “adaptive reuse,” the report attempts to demonstrate how religious affordable housing helps both congregations and communities alike.