City Building—A Faith-Based Response to the Housing Crisis

When inner-block courtyards meet a sense of duty, surprisingly simple solutions emerge.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: This piece by Thomas Dougherty was originally published by Southern Urbanism (https://southernurbanism.org).

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I. Introduction

The obligation to “provide housing for the stranger,” a duty seen by many as sacred, can be found in almost all cultures and at all points in history. Today, this mission of providing housing to those in need is facing new challenges. For many in our country, rising rents and home prices have outstripped income. Exclusionary zoning and conventional development practices have failed to meet the growing need for attainable, smaller housing options. Over the last century, changing lifestyles and family demographics no longer presuppose children caring for aging parents, while at the same time, lifespans have been growing, with many elders far outliving retirement age. But most crucially, the wealth-building asset that the single-family house has become, and the fast paced nomadic lifestyle that many Americans lead, is proving an existential threat to our very understanding of “home.”

II. The godshuis model

Charitable giving has been part of American religious tradition since its founding. For early American Christian faith commu- nities, for instance, these traditions stretched back for centu- ries. But the origin of caring for the poor and sheltering the homeless stretches back to time immemorial. In Christian Antiquity, charitable housing or alms-housing did not exist as its own institution until sometime in the fourteenth century. Prior to that, charitable housing was an offering found within a “hospital” (from the Latin word hospes, meaning guest). Institutional hospitals, funded by local tax revenue, existed as early as the fourth century. These hospitals offered care and housing for the poor, the sick, the elderly, traveling strangers, pregnant women, orphans, and others in need.(1)

The rule of St. Benedict (AD 516) stated that “every arriving guest must be welcomed as if he were Christ,” and monasteries across Europe served as places of refuge. Church leaders were tasked by papal authority to provide hospice for travelers and those in need. Along with the monasteries and church leaders, wealthy benefactors or ruling families also built and endowed charitable housing and care for the poor. These hospitals were sometimes known as a Bedehouse: Those housed were to pay by praying for their benefactor. A famous example from France is the Hôtel-Dieu in Beaune. Founded in 1443 by Nicolas Rolin, Chancellor of Burgundy, and his wife Guigone de Salin, it housed the poor and elderly while also offering medical care. The beautiful complex of buildings and courtyards was endowed with multiple nearby vineyards and served as a medical hospital until 1948.(2)

With the rise of the merchant class of Western Europe, a new group of philanthropists emerged. In the fourteenth century in Belgium, the godshuis (translated from Flemish as “God’s house”), an inner-block courtyard formed by individual small homes, was built by wealthy merchants and trade guilds for elderly members of the community. Like the Hôtel-Dieu, these courtyard developments were endowed with funds that were used to provide for the daily needs of their residents. The funds also covered the maintenance and management of the godshuis, with the goal of giving the elderly a home for centuries to come.

The godshuis offers a vision of what a person-centered environment for all, including the elderly, could look like today.

The early American colonies followed the English tradition of providing an almshouse or poorhouse. Unlike the Belgian godshuis, these institutions demanded work from those housed and were usually seen as a refuge of last resort by those staying there. These institutions were also designed to house a much wider demographic, which included people with physical and mental illness, single mothers, orphans, the poor, and the elderly. Over time, such institutions focused more on medical care than housing, and eventually, many became medical hospitals. Over the years, churches in America have continued to serve their mission of providing shelter for those in need, but today, this mission is facing new challenges.

III. The crisis of “home”

Across America, faith communities find themselves tackling a multifaceted housing crisis—one that involves both housing attainability as well as the cultural loss of our understanding of “home.” Many church communities, especially in the South, own large lots in quickly urbanizing areas. They bring a unique perspective on how the places we live in can either contribute or be detrimental to community and humans’ ability to flourish.

Over the past year, I have been in touch with one such church community located in Durham, North Carolina. They find themselves in the position of owning the 10-acre lot where their church sits. Recently, the community has been discussing how they might address the housing crisis by developing attainable homes for lower-income households on their land. This plan would also include a special focus on small accessible housing for the rapidly growing elderly population.

The potential of this line of thinking is invigorating. But the group has also encountered a few key challenges along the way—ones that aren’t contained to the South. Let’s take a look:

The Problem of Zoning

As they read about the development process, this Durham church community discovered that the current zoning code that governs the use of their land does not allow residential homes to be built. Churches nationwide are facing the same issue. Zoning codes, largely dating from the 1960s and ’70s, govern almost all land use in the United States making the development of small, attainable housing on church land illegal.

The Problem of Durability

This isn’t the first time this church community came together to provide housing. In the early ’90s, they raised considerable funds to assist in the construction of an attainable housing building in Durham (on a separate lot). But the building is now showing its age. The nonprofit managers of the four-story wood-framed structure have been told that the building would cost more to renovate than it is worth—and that “scraping” the structure away into a landfill and starting over is probably the best path forward.

The Problem of Housing

When I talked to them, the church leaders told me about the lack of housing options for the elderly in their community. They also spoke of the struggle to retain and build their congregation, in part due to the rising cost of housing around the city. This housing problem is not unique to Durham. As a recent report about America’s aging population put it, “By 2030, more than 1 in 5 people in the United States will be age 65 or older. And by 2035, older adults are projected to outnumber children for the first time ever.” Household makeup is also changing. Today, single-person households outnumber nuclear family households. 48 percent of American adults are single, and 28 percent of American households are single adults living alone. “Since 1990, rents and home prices have risen precipitously, but the median household income has stagnated. The result: Millions are struggling to afford housing.”

The Problem of Home

What is it to have a home? What does that look like in our final years of life? How important is the beauty and durability of the place we call home? This Durham church is aware that they are not alone in wanting to address the housing needs of their community. Help is available in the form of public housing options, the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, and subsidized affordable housing programs on both the local and federal levels. The church community however, brings a unique perspective to the housing crisis. Unlike many city leaders or policy program administrators, their experience is personal. They remember all too clearly building attainable housing in the ’90s—the structure they are now being told is not worth the money needed to renovate. They own 10 acres of land in an appreciating urban setting that is not taxed. For them, this crisis—and their ability to help alleviate it—is visible every day.

On the topic of home, there is also a growing awareness of how important location and quality are when it comes to the places we live. That’s true for all people, but it’s especially true for the elderly. Dr. Bill Thomas is a geriatrician recognized as one of the nation’s key thought leaders on aging and care. To paraphrase, he says that “our current medical industry over-clinicalizes aging” and that “the environment we call home, not medication, should be the number one concern for those providing elderly care.”(3) Home is not something that can be taken for granted, and the church leaders in Durham are stressing the fact that a so-called affordable unit may provide shelter, but it does not necessarily provide a home.

lV. A true legacy project

Bruges, 1613

Perhaps the most well-preserved medieval European city in existence today is Bruges, Belgium. Its location and importance were due to a tidal inlet that allowed it to serve as a trade hub for Europe between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. It became a wealthy city of merchant-class citizens whose Christian values and ideals can still be seen, reflected in the streets, architecture, churches, shrines, and the housing they provided for the elderly poor—the godshuis. The godshuizen (plural of godshuis) were built as almshouses to serve the poor, including elderly people, widows, and others in need. Residents were customarily given a weekly stipend and asked in return to pray for the souls of their benefactors. Today, 45 of these “God’s houses” still exist in Bruges. The earliest existing example dates from 1330 and is still in use today.

In 1613, Johanna de Muelenaere founded the godshuis that is now known as De Muelenaere—24 small houses intended for elderly women in need. Until the takeover of Bruges by Napoleon, these houses were cared for and managed by the Muelenaere family. Today, the godshuis it is managed by the city, and it still serves the elderly in need. The small brick houses block out any noise from the street, and the courtyard offers an almost startling sense of peace, even though it is just a few steps from the public street and needs of daily life. It’s an example worth following because of three things it offers:

A Durable Plan

Also in 1613, Joanna de Muelenaere found herself facing a housing crisis in Bruges. Her response was to build a family legacy project—built simply of brick but with the integrity to last for centuries. De Muelenaere, like the other godshuizen of Bruges, limited the number of units built to what could be endowed. Instead of maxing out the possible number of built units, the Muelenare family built 24 and a chapel, the number their wealth could support into perpetuity.

An Accessible Life

The godshuis De Meulenaere is made up of 24 small single-story homes built around a shared garden courtyard in the heart of the city. Placing the homes within the urban block allowed pedestrian access to amenities that they relied on. Today, there is a bakery, a grocery store, many restaurants, and a pharmacy all within a few steps, greatly extending the autonomy of the elderly.

A Home

To reach the courtyard, you must walk through an arched opening from the street. There is a sense that the space is semi-private and yet still public. Instead of the homes opening directly onto the street, the courtyard provides a transitional space—a place of security, peace, and natural beauty. The individual home is the basic building block of the godshuis. Each one has its own front door, which tangibly reflects the significance of the individual person living there—an individual who is free to retire into their own domain.

V. A lesson from the past, a vision for the future

Although here in the US we live in the wealthiest, most prosperous, most technologically advanced moment in the history of the world, America’s current housing needs are urgent, and our cultural understanding of home is quickly being lost. This is in part because for the last 75 years, both market-rate and affordable-housing projects have largely not been worth maintaining for much longer than 45 or 50 years. Like the Durham church’s 1990s contribution to attainable housing, these projects were aimed at maximizing impact, and in doing so, they solved only the immediate need. Modern development pro formas don’t value multi-generational permanence, and their value proposition is “number of units to cost of construction in a 30- to 45-year time frame.” But individuals, families, and the collective memory of generations desire much longer intervals.

Modern infrastructure needs our existing wide streets—but there is room inside your block for an urban oasis. Inside the block, the most photographed street in your town or city is waiting to be built.

The church in Durham stands at a crossroads. Their faith-based mission and multi-generational perspective give them a unique vantage point from which to engage with the current “crisis of home.” With their 10 acres of land located in an urbanizing area, inherited from the contributions of previous generations of church members, how should they move forward?

In December of 2022, Southern Urbanism hosted a faith-based housing charrette, working with four faith communities to explore possible attainable housing developments on their land. The impetus for the charrette was a proposed text amendment to Durham’s zoning code. For nearly a century, it has been illegal for church communities in the United States to build attainable housing on their property, but Durham is poised to upend that history. Durham’s proposed accessory dwelling unit (ADU) text amendment (allowing church communities to build an unlimited number of 1,200-square-foot ADUs on their land) would reverse a century of exclusionary land use law and empower church communities to once again pursue the mission of providing homes to those in need.

The godshuis offers a vision of what a person-centered environment for all, including the elderly, could look like today. The modern godshuis could be much like the old: made with simply stacked brick and a sturdy roof that could last for centuries. In this light, godshuis is a gift to the city. It acts as a home for generations of families and the community as a whole.

The historic godshuis homes are typically single-story, party-wall brick homes of perhaps 600 square feet—a perfect fit for new ADU ordinances like Durham’s. The interiors of the homes could be designed and built at the highest standards of elderly care today. They would be grouped in community-scaled numbers of around four to 30 homes, and each home would have a front door leading out to a beautiful shared garden courtyard. Built modestly and made to last, the godshuis homes would become part of the fabric of the city. Like the godshuizen of Bruges, they would be worth inheriting and could continue the mission of providing a home for the elderly or those in need for centuries to come.

Vl. Conclusion

If Durham’s proposed ADU text amendment passes, a new model of faith-based housing could emerge in America. A model composed of durable housing meant not only for the needs of today but also those of many future generations. A model that reflects the individuality of the person. A model that addresses the housing needs of its community with beauty and without excess. A dwelling that reflects our human need for more than just shelter—a home.

Thomas Dougherty is an Architectural and UX Urban Designer revolutionizing infill development by uncovering the forgotten space of the inner block. Modern infrastructure needs our existing wide streets—but there is room inside your block for an urban oasis. Inside the block, the most photographed street in your town or city is waiting to be built.

(1) Brian Howson, Almshouses: A Social and Architectural History (Cheltenham: HistoryPress Limited, 2008).

(2) Brian Howson, Almshouses.

(3) For more, watch his TEDx Talk: William H. Thomas, “Elderhood Rising: The Dawn of a New World Age” [Video], June 8, 2011, https://youtu.be/8QA2qArF514. See also: Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2014), http://atulgawande.com/book/being-mortal/.

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