“A Social Justice Enterprise”: A Roxbury Parish Plans 217 Homes as Boston-Area Churches Turn Pews Into Housing

• St Katharine Drexel Parish in Roxbury plans Drexel Village with 217 homes, most affordable
• Sacred Heart in East Cambridge is converting old buildings into 46 affordable units
• A 1714 Beverly church with 64 members is handing its building to a homeless charity
• State lawmakers have filed a “Yes in God’s Backyard” bill

Churches across Massachusetts are turning to housing as congregations shrink, and one of the biggest projects is in Roxbury, one of Boston’s historically Black neighbourhoods. St Katharine Drexel Parish is planning Drexel Village, 217 apartments and condominiums, most of them at affordable rates, along with retail and community space and a renovated parish centre, The Boston Globe reported.

The project is being developed by the Planning Office of Urban Affairs, the nonprofit housing arm of the Archdiocese of Boston. The Rev Oscar Pratt of St Katharine Drexel called it “a social justice enterprise”.

In East Cambridge, Sacred Heart Catholic Church is working with Preservation of Affordable Housing to convert its rectory, school and convent into 46 affordable units while keeping the historic brick shells and stained-glass windows. North of Boston, Second Congregational Church in Beverly, founded in 1714 and down to 64 members from a peak of 750, is handing its building to Lifebridge North Shore to become a resource centre for homeless people. “It is impossible to ignore how difficult it has become to find stable housing,” said its minister, the Rev Adam Isbitsky.

The shift reflects falling attendance: about 30 per cent of Americans now attend religious services regularly, down from 42 per cent two decades ago, the Globe noted. State Senator Brendan Crighton has co-sponsored a “Yes in God’s Backyard” bill to make such projects easier.

Greater Boston’s Caribbean community, including many Jamaican families in Dorchester, Mattapan and Roxbury, knows the region’s housing costs well. Drexel Village shows a church using its land to keep an ethnically diverse neighbourhood affordable rather than selling out of it. For Jamaican congregations with underused halls, rectories or school buildings, the question is the same: whether that space could house members and neighbours while still serving worship.

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