Virginia Congregation Sells Church To Build Affordable Housing

A congregation in Arlington, Virginia has opted to sell their church building and grounds to a nonprofit that will use the land to build affordable housing.

The Arlington Presbyterian Church began looking for ways renew its mission and reconnect with its neighborhood in 2012, The Washington Post reports. Members of the church set out on this mission by asking around their neighborhood of Columbia Pike to learn what its residents worried about most.

So, the century-old congregation opted to sell their church site below market value to the Arlington Partnership for Affordable housing, a non-profit that will build 173 affordable apartments. The church plans to rent space on the ground floor of the building.

Core added that some members left the church in the wake of the decision, particularly taxing on the congregation's already diminished membership.

The church hopes the move will ensure its own continued existence and respond to the neighborhood's growing housing crisis.

The new apartments will be named in honor of Ronda Gilliam, the church's first African American member who founded a clothing donation program in the early 1960s.

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