A 150-year-old Bronx Methodist church that closed with 12 members is now the site of 153 affordable apartments for low-income seniors, with a Methodist agency keeping a 25% stake in the $88 million project.

Rev Lilla Martin spent decades in England and the US before returning to build the Allibecca retirement home in Mandeville. At 85, the Anglican priest warned that nursing homes should never operate from rented premises.

San Jose’s Cathedral of Faith planned 237 apartments on its 13.4-acre campus for seniors, unhoused people, disabled adults and young people leaving foster care, with a developer, public subsidies and a Christian foundation.

More than 100 social homes for older people, a smaller 300-seat church and a primary care centre have been approved on the site of Finglas’s 3,500-seat Church of the Annunciation, part of a national public-private scheme.

Fifty Washington, DC churches have formed Black Equity Through Homeownership, an alliance planning affordable homes, repair funds for inherited houses and buyer workshops, drawing on congregations that have already built homes and senior housing.

A Haitian-led East Flatbush church opened a $45 million, 89-unit senior residence, with about half the homes for homeless older people, and its pastor urged fellow Haitians to treat it as a model at home and abroad.

A 164-unit low-income senior housing building was proposed in 2019 for the Rocky Mount Baptist Church site in Fort George, Manhattan, after a 19-storey plan was voted down and a 10-storey plan lost its financing.

Higher Ground Empowerment Center Church has teamed up with Atlanta agencies and a nonprofit developer on The Legacy at Vine City, 105 apartments for seniors with one-bedroom rents around $834 against a local average of $1,100.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia broke ground on St. John Neumann Place II, 52 affordable apartments for independent seniors on a former Catholic high school campus, backed by a $12 million tax credit allocation.

Jamaica has 244,000 residents aged 65 and older, a fast-growing diaspora nearing retirement, and zero purpose-built retirement communities. That gap is becoming one of the more obvious openings in the property market.