church land

Jamaicas churches have lost thousands of acres to squatting and adverse possession. As the government pushes a national land titling drive, denominations are racing to secure what they have left.

After a newborn died in a homeless tent in Wagga Wagga, faith housing advocates said rezoning church land for housing can cost $150,000 and take a year, while a Nowra church opened a 12-bed shelter in weeks.

India’s Supreme Court revived a criminal case over a Church of South India sale in Ananthapuramu, where records approved one acre and a bungalow but the deed allegedly conveyed all 7.75 acres.

The Church of England’s Archbishops’ Council Housing Project approved 13 more grants in March 2026, taking its funding for early feasibility work on church housing to more than £1 million across 48 projects.

Sanctuary Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale is part of a plan for a 12-storey, 340-unit building with up to a third affordable homes, as developers seek out church land across South Florida, CBS News Miami reported.

More than 100 families on Kampala’s Nsambya Housing Estate faced eviction after a 49-year lease expired and the Catholic archdiocese moved to redevelop, until a government minister stepped in and suspended the deadline.

Releven’s Winnipeg Declaration urges Canadian faith leaders to turn underused church land into affordable housing, as a third of the country’s 27,000 religious buildings face closure, with projects such as a 110-unit tower at a Winnipeg Anglican church.

Faith-owned vacant land in the DC area could produce up to 108,000 new homes, more than enough to close the regions entire rental shortfall. The constraint has never really been the land.

The chairman of the Barbados Diocesan Trustees set out plans for a $10 million multi-storey development on church land at Collymore Rock and defended sales of Glebe land to tenants at subsidised prices as low as $5 per square foot.

The Church of England’s new Church Housing Association, registered in March 2025, plans to start building on glebe land in central Birmingham in early 2026, with its project director calling the housing crisis almost life-threatening.

Fresno’s Westside Church of God is working with a local development group to build 21 senior cottages on an acre of church land, with rents expected at $500 to $750 a month.

First United Methodist Church of San Diego is planning affordable housing on its Mission Valley land through a 55- to 99-year ground lease rather than a sale, with a feasibility study modelling a 140-unit family project.

Grace Community Baptist Church in Kingstown Park, St Vincent, plans to build Grace Christian Academy, a EC$1.4 million primary school on its own church site, funded by members, Christian organisations and overseas churches.

A $1.1 million Wisconsin programme will give up to 30 congregations grants of up to $40,000 for the studies needed to turn church land into housing and community space, recycling funds from successful projects.

Mozambique’s Archdiocese of Nampula says squatters have occupied a seminary, parish and monastery land, destroying walls and cashew trees, while a May 2025 court order to evict them goes unenforced.