Workers in Columbia, South Carolina, transform the former Rosewood Baptist Church in three apartment buildings in 2022.
Photographer: The State/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
Why Turning Churches Into Housing Is So Hard
Religious groups own millions of acres of land and thousands of empty buildings across the US. But converting this real estate into affordable homes takes more than just faith.
In 2009, Arlington Presbyterian Church was celebrating more than a century in its Northern Virginia community. It was also facing another, less optimistic, milestone: The congregation, which had boasted more than 1,000 members in the 1950s, was down to fewer than 100. So the church embarked on an unlikely resurrection.
Over the next decade, Arlington Presbyterian would raze its main church and sell the land for $8.5 million — 20% below market value — to the Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing. The nonprofit then built Gilliam Place, a 173-unit affordable housing development. Members of the church now rent worship space on the ground floor of the building, which finished leasing up in 2019.