How Rochester's faith communities help tackle housing and homelessness
Dec. 2—ROCHESTER — Luanne Koshire sees cooking at
Dorothy Day Hospitality House
as an extension of her religious beliefs.
"I think our faith is at the core of it," she said of arranging monthly meals cooked by members of
St. Pius X Catholic Church
, 1315 12th Ave. NW. "It's at the heart of what we do."
When it comes to finding ways to support those without shelter, as well as those at risk of losing housing, churches, synagogues and mosques throughout Rochester are helping, from providing meals and clothing to finding new paths to build affordable housing.
"To care for those without a home is something that we are expected to do as people of faith ... care for the poor," said Glenn Monson, senior pastor of
Mount Olive Lutheran Church
, 2830 18th Ave. NW. "It goes across the board. Whether it's Jews, Muslims or Christians, it doesn't matter, the mandate is there in our scriptures: to care for people in need."
Marcy Jensen, who schedules cooks at Dorothy Day House, 703 First St. SW, said she sees the work being done on a regular basis along a broad range of beliefs, but opportunities remain for additional help.
"Maybe during a month, I have four or five openings," she said of when cooks are not scheduled at the shelter.
Speaking to religious leaders, outreach staff and congregation members of all faiths and ideologies shows the drive to make a difference exists among the pews and other gathering spaces.
"Those issues of basic human dignity, that allow people to live and be themselves, are a concern of the church," said the Rev. Shannon Smith of
The Congregational Church
, 974 Skyline Drive SW. "It is part and parcel of the Gospel. ... We don't have the luxury to ignore those, in our perspective."
The need to help others is often a message on Sunday morning, as clergy challenge their parishioners to to consider how they can help.
"As the faith community, we can no longer fear these people or think they are all screwing our community,"
Echo Church
Pastor Andy Cass said recently as the church prepared to box food for families and backpacks for homeless individuals. "Just like the Bible talks about the leper on the edge of society, that issue was there then and the issue is here today. Jesus went and touched those people, so if Jesus touched those people, guess what we have to do."
Churches have been built on the idea of reaching out while addressing spiritual needs.
"Everything we do, everything people know
The Salvation Army
for, is really rooted in our relationship with Christ," said Maj. Candace Voeller, who co-leads the Rochester congregation and its social service efforts. "It's our outward expression of our faith, and how we want to serve people in the name of Christ."
In recent years, several local churches have started looking for opportunities to go beyond providing meals, donating supplies and other measures to address to address immediate needs. Like The Salvation Army, they are looking for ways to house people.
Bear Creek Christian Church
started
creating housing options six years ago by purchasing the former Crossroads Bible College campus
and creating a nonprofit to operate the site, offering affordable rental housing, as well as housing for other nonprofit programs.
Jeff Urban, the church's outreach pastor, said the effort emerged after helping address needs in mobile home parks, and it keeps growing through partnerships, including working with Three Rivers Community Action in an effort to seek state support for creating 48 new workforce housing units on the southwest Rochester campus.
Other Rochester churches have also provided land and resources to help create Habitat for Humanity housing, which Urban said are among activities taking a Sunday morning message into the day-to-day.
"The opportunity for something like housing is it gives people a very concrete practical way to put their faith into action," Urban said. "It's not just an academic exercise on Sunday or a spiritual exercise, but it's saying: 'Here's what we believe, but how can we show our love to our neighbor?' "
It's not always an easy exercise.
People Of Hope Church
began working with Titan Development in an effort to build a 72-unit affordable apartment building near its church at 3703 Country Club Road SW, but neighbors' concerns have bogged the project down in court and left it with expired state tax credits that would need to be renewed.
In another effort to address housing needs, the Rev. Don Barlow of
Rochester Community Baptist Church
said his congregation sought to use its parsonage to house homeless families on a rotating basis, offering the space for up to a year to allow them to get on their feet.
The lack of support services and staff time to work directly with the first family, however, demonstrated the goal outweighed the church's resources.
"If basic needs are not addressed in that opportunity, you are basically providing a temporary fix, rather than a solution," he said, adding that larger policy changes are needed to address the systemic issues that lead to homelessness and housing insecurity.
Leaders of several other churches have said they have looked into purchasing homes for shelter or building their own, but they must weigh the added needs, since resources are limited.
"It's a constant conversation," said Sarah Lichty,
Zumbro Lutheran Church
's director of mission.
The church at 624 Third Ave. SW already provides space for Lutheran Social Services to operate a homeless youth drop-in site, but it also has excess land that could be used for housing. While providing space for people 16 to 24 years old has been working well in the church's mission to help address homelessness, Lichty said building housing is a big ask and requires the right partners.
"Affordable housing is a big issue," she said. "It's a complicated issue that comes with many layers."
Urban said Zumbro Lutheran isn't alone in pondering options. At least 20 churches in Rochester have excess land that could be used to create new housing, from single-family homes to apartment buildings, he said. There's also potential for churches to join resources to purchase property or existing buildings that could support affordable housing goals.
Working part time as project development and community outreach director at
Coalition for Rochester Area Housing
, the Bear Creek pastor has started discussions with leaders from some of the churches and plans to have more conversations in the upcoming months.
Olmsted County Housing and Redevelopment Authority also has plans that could help address some of the concerns, or at least answer questions.
The HRA board recently
approved guidelines that sets aside $200,000 to help nonprofits
, including churches, deal with pre-development expenses related to determining whether a housing project is possible. The funds are part of $4.9 million dedicated largely to building new, affordable single-family homes.
Jenny Cannon, pastor of
Christ United Methodist Church
, said addressing such concerns could help determine whether a project is feasible within a restricted church budget.
The church at 400 Fifth Ave. SW has long discussed the potential of creating housing on one of its two downtown parking lots or converting the house on its property into supportive housing of some sort, but both spaces currently provide church income — portions of the parking lots are rented to Mayo Clinic for employee parking, and the house is leased for short-term stays.
Since the resources support other church missions, which include Saturday noon meals for people facing food insecurity and daycare scholarships to low-income families, a balance would need to be struck.
Olivia Bergen, the local
Isaiah MN
organizer, which works with churches to advocate for policy change on the state and local levels, said she's seen growing interest in housing and shelter opportunities.
"A lot of churches in Rochester are at least curious about how they can use property to be able to address issues of housing inventory and homelessness," Bergen said. "There are a bunch of ways that can be done."
While the focus for many churches is building new housing, another option that has been emerging.
The Minnesota Legislature approved a measure this year to allow churches and other religious institutions to create micro-unit dwellings on their properties, and it requires cities to ensure there is a path for approval.
The policy, known as
sacred settlements
, takes effect next year, and Rochester City Council member Norman Wahl, a retired
Bethel Lutheran Church
minister, said he has challenged churches working with Isaiah MN to create a proposal that could allow tiny homes or temporary structures on church land to provide temporary shelter.
He said the option is intriguing as work continues on a proposed camping ban, which he supports as a community safety measure.
"Certainly there is a call for public safety within our context of caring for others," he said.
The concept for temporary housing has been supported by Rochester Mayor Kim Norton, but she's failed to find traction with other city and county officials when it comes to using public funds, often due to the need for running water and electricity and questions on whether the space would be used.
Dan Fifield, co-founder of
The Landing MN
, which provides day center services for people facing homelessness, has said he believes a temporary site would be used, if it's in the location and operated by a nonprofit.
Meanwhile, existing shelters continue to feel the lingering impacts of the COVID pandemic.
Most notably, Family Promise Rochester, which once sheltered families in area churches on a rotating basis, moved to a permanent shelter model when the pandemic restrictions kicked in. It reduced the need for volunteers as the virus spread, but it also meant fewer families were served.
Growing congregations can face challenges with volunteers, too. Rabbi Michelle Werner of
B'nai Israel Synagogue
said she's seeing more young families joining the synagogue, but the parents are highly skilled professionals with limited free time to volunteer.
She said the members tackle projects as they arise, whether it's helping a student with a bar mitzvah project, serving meals and making donations or finding ways to connect people to services.
"We are invested and active," she said, adding that she sees needs and efforts to address them on a routine basis, but more help is needed.
Mary Vlazny, director of social action at
St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church
, said that challenge highlights the need for coordinating resources.
While St. John's members, like other congregations, provide volunteer hands throughout the community and a variety of other direct support, she said the greater impact is seen by supporting organizations like Society of St Vincent de Paul and other nonprofits, which can build partnerships to provide a greater resource for people who are struggling to keep their housing amid rising costs and often stagnant wages.
"There is no one solution," she said. "It's going to take a variety of solutions to hold the dignity of people struggling with housing."
Part of that means literally opening doors for community organizations, which Cannon's church did for a Family Promise fundraiser and
Gloria Dei Lutheran Church
, 1212 12th Ave. NW, will be doing on Jan. 26 when it hosts
Project Community Connect
, which helps connect people to a variety of community services.
New partnerships are also emerging amid advocacy efforts.
Bergen said Isaiah's mission revolves around outreach related to policy change, with housing recently identified as a key issue, but by working with a variety of churches, as well as mosques through the organization's Muslim Coalition, has helped make new connections among faith leaders and congregations.
People of Hope Pastor Dan Doering said those partnerships also extend to working directly with city and county officials to help identify and carry out potential community solutions and responses.
"We need both civic leaders and sacred leaders to join together. ... If we started thinking strategically together, we might be able to accomplish something," he said.
Clergy members said that message of unified support is commonly expressed as they speak to their congregations, challenging them to find new ways to offer help and work communitywide to address needs.
For the Rev. Luke Stevens-Royer, the message can land in the ears of local policy makers, since several elected city and county officials are members of his congregation at
First Unitarian Universalist Church
, 1727 Walden Lane SW.
"I'm mindful that there are public officials there, potentially a couple each Sunday at least," he said of city council members and county commissioners.
Other clergy members cited similar situations when it comes to city and county staff or nonprofit leaders in their congregations, who play a daily role in addressing issues of housing and homelessness. Like Stevens-Royer, they said those congratulation members can also play a role in educating others in the faith community.
"The word religion basically means how are we bound together in community, and that has to have an impact with our share life in the wider community," Stevens-Royer said.
Urban agreed, saying help can be offered through a variety of resources found in individual congregations.
"A big opportunity that we have is to practically leverage the resources we have," he said of church congregations. "That could be the resources of the congregation to get people connected to places like The Landing to serve and volunteer.
"I think it's even to motivate your greater community in your church — your business owners, your investors — and ask if there are ways to leverage resources we have. You might own an apartment building, would you consider taking a family or two that have vouchers because the county is looking for more landlords that will take these families."
Gloria Dei's Berg said those are messages that resonate, often regardless of ideology.
"It's absolutely a faith issue, and part of what we are called to do is offer hospitality and offer broad welcome and care for our neighbor at need," he said. "When we do so, there is this understanding that we are entertaining angels unaware. We are caring for Christ right in our presence by caring for someone in need."
