‘Yes in God’s backyard:’ Idaho churches hope to put a dent in affordable housing need

By 2030, the Boise area needs nearly 25,000 more homes to accommodate its growing population. At least 77% of those new homes should be affordable to people making below the area median income, the city of Boise said.

Boise is nowhere close to its goal, having built 4,000 units less than what it needed over the last three years. But an unexpected group guided by unwavering faith and equipped with lots of land hopes to put a dent in the need.

Treasure Valley churches and faith communities have begun to tackle the affordable housing shortage. Last month, Collister United Methodist Church broke ground on two four-bedroom houses it’s building with Leap Housing for families or individuals who earn at or below 30% of the area median income, $27,750 a year for a family of four.

Leap Housing, a local nonprofit affordable home builder, launched a campaign last summer called “Yes in God’s backyard,” to partner with faith communities like Collister United Methodist Church to build affordable housing units.

“You’ve maybe heard ‘not in my backyard’, right?” said Bart Cochran, executive director of Leap, in a presentation to faith leaders on Tuesday. “And you’ve heard the counter, ‘yes in my backyard,’ but this is the faith community’s call to yes, it’s God’s land so yes in God’s backyard, we’re going to do something about it.”

Cochran spoke on Tuesday afternoon to a dozen faith community members and leaders at Stonehill Church in Meridian. The leaders hosted a housing symposium to discuss ways the communities could get involved in homelessness prevention and affordable housing.

“We determined that 168 churches in the Treasure Valley hold approximately 180 acres of excess land,” Cochran said. Together, that is larger than the Boise State campus, he said.

He said the excess land they found was not the church parking lots or any space they are using, but the “weedy patch in the back” or the “undeveloped parking spot off to the side.”

The 180 acres could be home to thousands of housing units, Cochran said.

“What it told us was that (churches are) uniquely positioned to not only make a dent in the affordable housing crisis, but maybe solve it,” Cochran said.

Trinity Lutheran Church in Nampa rents 16 affordable single-family homes near its church to low-income individuals. Joseph Bankard, the pastor at Collister United Methodist Church, said he expects families to be moving into their affordable homes next month.

Bankard, who also spoke during the symposium, encouraged any churches with excess land to reach out to Leap, which can partner with churches to find the funding for projects, construct the project and manage it when tenants move in.

Drawn by his faith and his belief that the Bible teaches the importance of hospitality, Rob Frazier, a worship leader at Redemption Hill, a network of small churches in West Boise, helped launch another program, House Your Neighbor.

The organization aims to develop low-cost housing, according to its website. It gives people the option of donating land, renting an extra property or offering employment to a family in need.

“The hospitality of the Father and creating room in his family and in his household for us to belong to him is what the gospel is about,” Frazier said. “Somewhere along the way, hospitality got lost as a peripheral issue for the church. I think that it’s time for us to start thinking about hospitality as central to the faith of those who follow in the way of Jesus.”

This story was originally published September 25, 2022 at 4:00 AM.

Rachel Spacek

Idaho Statesman

Rachel Spacek is a former reporter covering Meridian, Eagle, Star and Canyon city and county governments for the Idaho Statesman.