PROJECTS

Innovative Housing in DC

Partnering with the Faith Community in Our Nation's Capital

With over 6,000 homeless people sleeping in Washington, DC on any given night, the Baltimore –Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church has maintained a commitment to ending chronic homelessness for several years. And with roughly 600 active congregations, the group has the resources necessary to make lasting change. Now, through a partnership with Community Solutions, it has a bold strategy to make its dream for homeless people a reality. In December of 2011, the Conference formally launched Be The Change, a new housing development corporation that will partner with Community Solutions to develop hundreds of units of permanent supportive housing in the DC area to help end chronic homelessness in the nation’s capitol.

A New Mission

The vision for Be The Change came from an unexpected place. Urban churches had long experienced the plight of homelessness, and their steps became a nightly sleeping place for their homeless neighbors.  As they considered what to do with underutilized church properties, the leaders of Be The Change saw an opportunity to repurpose these facilities to address the local need for housing.

Redefining What’s Possible

In 2009, Conference Bishop John Schol and Foundry Church Pastor Dean Snyder traveled to New York City to meet with the Community Solutions team. While there, they toured permanent supportive housing properties that team members had helped to develop. They were amazed and impressed by what they saw.

Permanent supportive housing helps homeless individuals to leave homelessness behind for good by offering them affordable apartments combined with the health, mental health and employment assistance needed to put their lives back on track. The Community Solutions team has ample experience implementing this approach, which costs far less than traditional responses to homelessness like shelters, jails and hospitals, and boasts a higher success rate in helping people to permanently escape homelessness.

For Schol, meeting formerly homeless people who now lived in beautiful, well-designed buildings where they could lock their doors and establish their own sense of space cemented the difference between shelter and a lasting home.

The Right Partner

Soon after their New York visit, Conference leaders made a bold decision to begin redeveloping underutilized properties they controlled into new permanent supportive housing for homeless people in Baltimore and Washington, DC. They recruited Community Solutions to guide them through the process.

"When we looked for a partner to help us realize the goal of ending homelessness through permanent supportive housing, we knew we needed a team with experience, vision and capacity,” says Schol. “One name kept rising to the top: Community Solutions."

In December of 2011, members of the Community Solutions team joined Schol, Snyder, and partners and congregants from across DC for a joyful launch celebration at Foundry Church. At the event, members of the congregation were asked to consider how they might be called to help. After a few moments, several men and women rose and stepped to the front of the sanctuary in a spontaneous show of support and commitment. This group has since formed a team to engage regularly with those who sleep on the church’s steps in hopes that some of them might soon become the first tenants in the Conference’s brand new units of permanent supportive housing.