A Parish’s Commitment to “People Who Are More Challenging to House”
April 3, 2024 | News & Announcements
The story behind the 18-unit apartment house rising in the lot behind St. Paul’s Church in White River Junction began in a moment of prayer. Then things got complicated.
The Rev. Scott Neal, who was then the church’s rector, was sitting in its old parish house one day in 2018 seeking some divine inspiration about how the small congregation, with plentiful land but not much money, could develop “a long-term ministry in the area.” The idea that came to him that day — selling air rights — was not a practical one, he realized, but it set the parish off on a challenging journey through the complicated process of selling church property for the sake of mission.
The pitched-roof, three-story structure taking shape behind the church is scheduled to open in late August or early September, offering furnished one-bedroom apartments, a common area, and support services to people who have faced long-term or chronic homelessness. It is a product of the parish’s commitment to providing shelter in the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire, but also of the persistence and savvy of parish leaders and their community partners.
“People didn’t want to just sell property,” said Leslie Black, a parishioner who lives across the street from the church. She serves as St. Paul’s liaison to the project’s architect, contractor, construction supervisor and engineer, and she updates the parish each week on new developments. “The decision to move forward was partly financially driven,” she said. “But we wanted it to be mission-driven as well.”
Conversations in the parish took several years, but the mission, in some ways, seemed obvious from the outset. Vermont has the second highest per capita homeless population in the country, behind only California. And the cost of living in the Upper Valley, which includes Dartmouth College and the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, is higher than in much of the country.
“The story kept coming back that there’s just no place for people to live, especially at the low end of the income scale,” said Andrew Pillsbury, who, as senior warden, helped guide the parish as it explored selling some of its property.
St. Paul’s also had a natural ally in working against homelessness. Its property abuts the Upper Valley Haven, which the parish had helped found in 1980. The Haven operates a 46-bed family shelter and a 20-bed adult shelter in White River Junction and offers support services throughout the region. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, St. Paul’s had offered a Sunday morning breakfast and social time for residents of an overnight shelter the Haven then operated on its grounds.
Parish leaders worked through a variety of options for creating shelter, including knocking down the church to build a single facility that could function as worship, office and shelter space. That idea did not survive review by historic preservationists.
Late in 2021, St. Paul’s decided on a two-pronged approach. It would sell the parish house and the land around it to Twin Pines, a not-for-profit affordable housing developer with headquarters in White River Junction, to build housing for the chronically homeless, and it would sell the strip of land abutting the Upper Valley Haven’s property to the Haven for a “low barrier shelter,” which would take in people who might not meet the requirements of other shelters.
The parish approved both proposals almost unanimously, and while it expected some resistance from neighbors who had concerns about trash and safety, it was surprised by the vehemence of the opposition expressed before local planning and zoning boards and in other venues.
“We were the church of the devil and we were horrible people,” Neal said. “That was all published on a listserv.”
The outpouring of criticism weakened support within the parish. “Some people in the parish were upset that neighbors were upset,” Black said.
“Some people left, some expressed concern and stayed,” Pillsbury said.
The church and its partners persisted. “Scott and other members of the church were hugely important in being able to advocate for the importance of the project, and how it fit within the parish’s history of service to the larger community that stretched back to its establishment in that part of town in the 1960s,” said Andrew Winter, executive director of Twin Pines.
In the end, the low barrier shelter was rejected by the local zoning board on a 3-2 vote in July 2022, while the apartment construction was approved a month later. “I think we were all surprised by the response from more vocal members of the community,” said Michael Redmond, executive director of the Haven.
But the story was still not over. The Haven decided to purchase the property despite the zoning board’s veto and keep it undeveloped for now. Then, last year, the State of Vermont passed the Home Act, making it more difficult for local jurisdictions to block the creation or restrict the operation of shelters. The legislation would have made it possible to develop the parcel of land it purchased from the church, but Redmond and the Haven decided instead to develop another property about a mile away as its low barrier shelter.
Meanwhile, at St. Paul’s, work began on the 18-unit building on the land behind the church with Twin Pines as developer and the Haven lined up to provide supportive services to residents. Because the units are being made available to “people who are more challenging to house,” Redmond said, the Haven will assign a service coordinator, a function similar to a caseworker, “so [residents] can be successful. People don’t have to participate in working with a case manager, but they largely do.”
In the months since permits were won and construction began, St. Paul’s has prepared to greet its new neighbors, each of whom will receive a quilt and some household items, such as cleaning and kitchen supplies, courtesy of the parish.
“People are excited about the building,” Black said. “The siding is on the back, and it looks really nice. I think there is energy in the parish to do some work with the Haven, and the people who live there.”
Neal, now one of the priests at the four-parish Upper Valley Constellation that includes St. Paul’s, sees this simple outreach as just the beginning of what can be possible now that St. Paul’s has finally succeeded in putting its property to work in the service of mission.
“It feels good that we were able to bring the conversation along and have people be excited about it,” he said.
photo: Leslie Black
https://diovermont.org/2024/04/03/a-parishs-commitment-to-people-who-are-more-challenging-to-house/