“A Real Cornerstone of the Community”: Two Boston Churches and a Convent Are Becoming Homes for Older Adults

• Hill Memorial Baptist Church in Allston-Brighton will become 50 apartments for older adults
• Blessed Sacrament Church in Jamaica Plain is being turned into 55 income-restricted units
• St Augustine’s Convent in South Boston will house 35 very low-income seniors
• Boston seniors can wait more than five years for subsidised housing

In Boston, where older residents can wait more than five years for subsidised housing, former churches are being turned into homes for them. The Christian Science Monitor reported in August 2024 on three conversions across the city.

Hill Memorial Baptist Church in Allston-Brighton, a 120-year-old congregation, held its final service in 2023 as membership dwindled. Members chose to sell to a housing developer. Its former pastor, the Rev Catherine Miller, said the congregation decided to sell the land to fulfil the church’s “mission of giving back to the Allston community in the form of senior housing.” The project will create 50 income-restricted apartments for older adults, and the sanctuary will become a common space for residents.

“The church was a real cornerstone of the community. It gave people a sense of home, and we’re trying to continue that,” said John Woods, executive director of the Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation. In the area, the average one-bedroom rent was $2,786 a month.

In Jamaica Plain, Blessed Sacrament Church is being converted into 55 income-restricted units, keeping its historic exterior. In South Boston, St Augustine’s Convent will provide 35 apartments for very low-income seniors, those living on less than $20,000 a year. “When they sit empty, it leaves a real void in the neighborhood. But when a building can be converted to housing so that people can stay in that community – it can be a wonderful thing,” said Donna Brown of the South Boston Neighborhood Development Corporation.

The Rev Patrick Reidy, a Notre Dame law professor who studies church property, summed up the appeal: “These kinds of adaptive reuse projects for affordable housing are a win-win-win.”

Boston has a sizeable Caribbean community, and older Jamaicans there face the same squeeze on rents as their neighbours. The Hill Memorial decision shows a congregation shaping what happens to its building even as it closes. For churches in Jamaica with shrinking memberships, and for diaspora congregations weighing a sale, it is a reminder that who buys, and for what purpose, can matter as much as the price.

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