Los Angeles is one of the most expensive cities in the US. The average home price will reach nearly a million dollars in 2024 – a situation that is displacing not only the poor but also young families with children. The high cost of housing is one of the main reasons why tens of thousands of people live on the streets of LA, and most of them are “rent burdened”, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income just to have a roof over their heads.
In light of these challenges, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles recently announced that it would provide land for a new housing development specifically designed for community college students and young people leaving foster care.
Amy Anderson, executive director of Our Lady Queen of Angels Housing Alliance and former housing secretary for the city of Los Angeles, told EWTN News that a group of Catholic lay leaders from the business and philanthropic communities approached the archdiocese with a vision to create an independent, nonprofit organization to develop affordable housing.
“Our vision is to really partner with the archdiocese and leverage the resources potentially available from the archdiocese to create housing that is affordable for a broad range of populations and incomes,” Anderson told “EWTN News Nightly” host Tracy Sabol.
She said they hope to begin construction on the project, known as the Willowbrook development, “in about a year.”
“The Archdiocese is a fantastic partner. They are providing the land for our first building project, which is already underway, and we are working very closely with them to identify further opportunities.”
The proposed building, which will be located steps from Los Angeles Community College, will provide 74 affordable housing units as well as “on-site supportive services” for young people leaving foster care, a population that often becomes homeless.
The property at 4665 Willow Brook Avenue, just a few miles from the Hollywood Sign, is currently home to a building owned by Catholic Charities, which will relocate its operations to another location to make room for the apartments.
“Through Catholic Charities and our ministries on Skid Row (a street in LA where many homeless people live) and elsewhere, we have been working for many years to provide shelter and services to our homeless brothers and sisters,” Archbishop Jose Gomez said in a statement to LAist.
“With this new initiative, we see exciting opportunities to provide more affordable housing, especially for families and young people.”
Making land available for the mission
The Catholic Church is often referred to as the largest non-governmental landowner in the world; an estimated 177 million acres are owned by Catholic institutions.
Maddy Johnson, program director of the Church Properties Initiative at the Fitzgerald Institute for Real Estate (FIRE) at the University of Notre Dame, pointed out that the church as a large landowner is not a new phenomenon, but today it must adapt to modern challenges such as regulations, zoning and the importance of protecting the natural environment.
Many Catholic dioceses and religious orders own property that no longer serves its original purpose, including vacant natural areas and parking lots, as well as closed monasteries and schools. Sometimes, Johnson said, a diocese or religious order is not even aware of the full extent of its holdings.
“How can the church make good strategic decisions, strategic decisions that are aligned with its mission, if it doesn’t know what assets it is responsible for?” she said.
Since property management is not a core competency of the church, FIRE aims to “create space for peer learning” to educate and train church leaders to better utilize their properties in service to the church’s mission.
To that end, they offer an undergraduate minor at Notre Dame designed to teach students how to help the church make strategic real estate decisions that align with the church’s mission. The institute also hosts a quarterly networking call with diocesan real estate directors, as well as an annual conference where Catholic leaders can come together, share best practices, and learn from one another.
In many cases, Catholic institutions that have partnered with FIRE have been able to repurpose properties that not only generate revenue for the church but also meet a community need.
Johnson said the church is called to respond to society’s modern problems – one of which is the lack of housing, especially for the poor.
“Throughout its history, there have been so many different ways in which the church has expressed its mission … through education, health care – we’ve really become accustomed to that,” Johnson said.
“Could it be the need for affordable housing in this day and age? … that is a charitable human need in the area that is not being met.”
Unlocking potential in California
Queen of Angels Housing’s first construction project, which has been in the works for several years, is now made possible by a recently passed California state law that will make it easier for churches to convert their properties into housing.
California’s SB 4, the Affordable Housing on Faith Lands Act, was signed into law in October 2023. It simplifies some of the most difficult aspects of the process of converting church-owned land into housing—the aspects that most people don’t really think about. These can include permitting and zoning restrictions that limit the types of buildings that can be built in a given area, and which can be difficult and time-consuming to overcome. SB 4 even includes a provision that allows denser development on church-owned land than zoning ordinances would normally allow.
Yes, in God’s backyard
The law implemented in California is part of a larger movement informally called “Yes in God’s Backyard” (YIGBY) – a variation of the term “Not in My Backyard” (NIMBY), a phenomenon in which neighbors take offense at and oppose new construction projects.
Proponents of the YIGBY movement, including Father Patrick Reidy, co-director of the Fitzgerald Institute at Notre Dame, believe the government should make it easier for churches of all denominations to provide housing for those in need.
Several Catholic real estate professionals with ties to California expressed excitement about the opportunities SB 4 has created in the Golden State.
Steve Cameron, a Catholic real estate developer in Orange County, told CNA that he is currently working with the Diocese of Orange, which borders the Archdiocese of LA, to inventory properties that could be converted to residential use.
He said their focus is on building multifamily and townhomes, primarily for rental rather than sale, to address the severe housing shortage and high costs in Southern California.
Unlike some dioceses, the Diocese of Orange has an electronic GIS (Geographic Information System) database that lists all of its properties. The database, created by a civil engineering company, contains details such as parcel numbers, areas, ownership information and demographic reports that facilitate the planning and development process.
“Strategically, we are inventorying all the diocesan and parish property and trying to identify where there may be unused properties that would be worth using for residential purposes,” Cameron said.
Cameron said he could not yet provide details on the housing projects they are working on, but said they view the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Queen of Angels housing project as a model for how to take advantage of the new incentives provided by SB 4.
“I think it’s great and exciting that they’re taking the lead and finding an opportunistic way to repurpose an unused property to address the housing shortage in California,” he said.
“(We) see her as a model for what we want to achieve here in the Diocese of Orange.”
John Meyer, former president of the California-based Napa Institute who now works in real estate at J2 Development, stressed the importance of viewing the church’s vast real estate holdings as an asset rather than a liability.
Meyer said he is currently working with two Catholic institutions on the East Coast on land leasing projects, one of which will fund construction of a new Catholic student center at a university. He told CNA he often advises Catholic institutions to lease the land they own rather than sell it so the church retains ownership of the property while also generating revenue.
Of course, any real estate project the church undertakes must be consistent with its mission to spread the gospel and not just be a means of making money, he noted.
“Whenever we look at the church’s real estate decisions, they must be linked to its mission and values,” he said.
“We don’t just develop for the sake of development. We want to add value to the church, and we also want to add value to the community. So it’s important to work closely with the community to make sure needs are met and to be a good neighbor.”
He said church leaders should seriously consider using incentives offered by various states, such as California, for projects such as affordable housing that are consistent with the church’s mission and provide both social and financial benefits.
“Priests and bishops are not ordained to do these things, and sometimes there are people in their diocese who have these skills and sometimes they don’t,” Meyer said.
“This (new law) in California has created an incentive that we can take advantage of, so we need to take advantage of that incentive… it allows us to unlock the potential value of land while serving a social purpose that is part of the mission of the church.”
