Episode 163: Tiny Homes to Fight Homelessness with Peter Christ

[00:00:00] On this episode, I talk with a Lutheran pastor about making space for tiny homes for people

[00:00:06] experiencing homelessness.

[00:00:08] And they're doing this all on their church property.

[00:00:12] This is Church in May. and leave a review that helps others find this podcast. So about two years ago, the congregation that I served was looking to sell its property. I looked in, we were meeting with a realtor and we were looking into selling the property.

[00:01:42] And one idea that came about was selling it

[00:01:44] to a housing nonprofit.

[00:01:46] One that would space for housing. There's another church that I'm aware of in Minneapolis that sold their property to yet another housing nonprofit. They are going to actually build affordable housing there.

[00:03:00] And they will also, the nonprofits also going to be creating worship space for this congregation. he shares the story of how his congregation was able to create a small community of tiny homes that is of a first becoming a suburb of the Twin Cities. We really are just a first-ring suburb just north of St. Paul. This was just farmland at the time. And then these neighborhoods were developed.

[00:05:43] And the congregation was founded, the charter members, was agricultural land and ultimately surrounding us remained fairly open space in the city acquired as city park land. And so our property is bordered on two full size by the Roseville Central Park.

[00:07:02] And we're kind of in unique context in that way.

[00:07:05] And so over time, some of our land has been annexed It's always with a fair eye out to the community in thinking about how it can support the work and the needs of its neighbors and any number of expressions. Congregation at its largest probably was probably in the neighborhood of 12 to 1500 members.

[00:08:23] Bring the boom days back into like 60s, 70s and 80s. there's some history here, but it's 66 years of history. And I myself came in 2016 and have been serving as a lead pastor here since then. And it's just been a gift to kind of get to notice this particular collection of people. My children were already in the school district,

[00:09:43] and so it was a really easy place for me who don't have anywhere to go but have a vehicle and sort of a park here and you typically you know arrive late in the evening find a quiet corner about parking lot and spend the night there callings that we believe God has put before us. And so that has created a number of really powerful relationships and partnerships with other area ministry groups, other organizations.

[00:12:20] And so we have about the congregation and Yeah So you kind of talked a little bit about the fact that you had people basically who

[00:13:41] Were kind of staying in your parking lot because they didn't have a place to go

[00:14:47] Roosevelt Police Department created a position for a homeless liaison housing navigator they call it and

[00:14:50] When I learned of that I reached out to her

[00:14:56] Initially I had an immediate need because they're we

[00:15:01] It's surprisingly one day we I pull up to the church and

[00:16:20] We're at the county with the where the intersection our you know, the homeless advocate or homeless liaison. And so I reached out and made a contact and she was very helpful in helping us come up with, and with a phone call that put us on quite a pretty dramatic journey of, as I described, stumbling into a ministry of serving the homeless. And so should I launch into that story at this point?

[00:17:43] Oh, right ahead.

[00:17:44] Yeah, so that was an occasion where were not as respectful and creating some trouble. And so the police and the city leaders decided that they needed to essentially disband that. And that would require them also having the woman who was living in a school bus relocate. And so Kerry said, is there any chance this

[00:19:02] woman could appear on your, could park her school bus camper and RV or whatever. But, but, and the woman who brought it here and was living in it, her name is Valerie. And Valerie was grateful to be welcomed. And, and we just said, you know,

[00:20:20] Valerie, if you ever need to come inside, you know, during the day when we've got our offices was really sort of isolated a little more just away from the church and very pleasant under a couple of big oak trees and she had just a beautiful spot and I could see right away a transformation happening that sort of I was surprised by but Valerie just you could see a

[00:21:40] weight being lifted off of her shoulders and some in a variety of ways, some of one acre parcel of land that was adjacent to part of the campus of a small church of the Nazarene

[00:24:22] called Mosaic Christian community on Wheelock Parkway in St church. The home, the tiny homes themselves are equipped with dry or compostable toilets. But most of, and then they have a little bit of a kitchenette area, but they're not hooked up to plumbing, water, or sewer services. They just

[00:25:40] have electricity. They're heated with electrocute. They do have a sink and a little basin that

[00:26:47] as they could put on their property. So she was sort of next on the list and

[00:26:53] and running for another community to get established somewhere. And so she just sort of that was kind of

[00:27:00] provision for what she was waiting for in her life. She wanted to live in this communal model.

[00:28:22] One of the things that we've learned and that time would come from family. Likely it would be around us. The chronically homeless are severed from that. Now it might have been because of an addiction or it might be that mental health stuff

[00:28:24] and they've just exhausted their natural support networks

[00:29:25] in relational ways and already exist as community.

[00:29:27] To think about expanding the, our understanding of what that might be

[00:29:29] to also incorporate a residential component

[00:29:32] to that for people who need community in their life.

[00:29:37] We all do, I mean, we all need it.

[00:29:40] We may not all benefit in the same way

[00:29:43] that the homeless might because of its therapeutic qualities

[00:29:46] related to, because she cared about Valerie too. She already had a relationship with her and Winter was coming. We all knew that that school bus was not going to be an appropriate place for her to live in the winter, especially just outside a church that's heated, 24-7. It's not a this, but the model of the tiny homes is that some portion of the homes are actually occupied, not all of them are occupied by people who are formerly chronically homeless, but a portion of them are occupied by people who are intentionally choosing to live in community

[00:32:21] alongside formerly homeless neighbors. And at Mosaic, two of the leadership of the church and just check in and make sure we're not getting too far. And so we did and we, we, I brought it to my, my executive committee who were eager to support, but they also said, let's, let's broaden this conversation and let's invite some other stakeholders into this. Ultimately, we had a variety of community conversations around it. And our council,

[00:33:42] which is elected by our congregation to, to, to interim would be that we would also do the deeper discernment as a whole congregation and if we would want to do this permanently over the course of the coming months over this past year and and so Just over a year ago those two homes were delivered to the church and we prepared them

[00:35:04] for occupancy and

[00:36:04] I mean, they're, you know, two by six wall construction. They're over insulated for a good Minnesota winters.

[00:36:08] They have solid roofing on them.

[00:36:10] They're built with home building materials.

[00:36:12] They're just 190 square feet on a trailer,

[00:36:17] on a well, you know, firmly planted on a trailer.

[00:36:20] That trailer then is anchored to the ground.

[00:36:23] It's not on a foundation, but all homes only just have a little dry or composting toilet in them because our residents primarily come

[00:37:42] inside to the church for that.

[00:37:44] And that's really just an emergency in the middle of the night.

[00:37:46] It's cold.

[00:37:47] I don't want to run into the church. specifically codifies the elements of a sacred settlement that Tiny Homes in this way partnered on land that is owned by churches in partnership with those churches and those worshiping faith communities that this is an allowable exercise.

[00:39:00] And that supersedes any municipal code

[00:39:03] as long as it meets homes. Now the legislation was adopted last spring, and we are anticipating, and it accommodate this third home pretty easily. Future growth would probably require us to do some additional renovation and think about expanding some of that common house space to just to make it feasible as the community would grow.

[00:41:41] And so, and lots of wondering about what's the right size

[00:41:46] and how many, we're just sort of taking it one step I'm assuming got to know Valerie. What, how has it impacted the congregation and even spurred them to continue to continue to welcome others? Yeah, I continue to say this is just transformational. I mentioned earlier that it was really easy to see the transformation happening in Valerie.

[00:43:01] And especially as she sort of has hit each of the milestones

[00:43:06] that really milestone of just being here with us, You know, if you asked me five years ago that I'd be in a homeless ministry, I would have thought, you know, that's crazy. I don't feel gifted and served to serve in that way. You know, I'm pastor to a, you know, fairly strongly middle class, not all that unaffluent, you know, community of believers here,

[00:44:24] very solid, you know, it a little trepidacious, you know, still a little fearful, not certain that this is what we should be doing, but many people have taken a few steps forward and have leaned into this opportunity and some have really jumped in with me and with our leadership team to really embrace this.

[00:45:43] And I'll tell you, those who have taken the bigger steps,

[00:45:47] they're being transformed. come and do some share a meal and do some storytelling once a month. And then if people are curious and want to learn more, it's been a great place for just outsiders to just say, I want to learn more. And I thought, well, come to our community dinner, you meet some of the key people, and you'll hear some of the stories and you'll learn more and you'll see and interact. And that's just been,

[00:47:00] that grows every month. There's just been more can start making specific plans and that kind of thing. So yeah. And what from that home that we just received was actually gifted to us and to settled by, they were, it was gifted by a company called Abtech. And they just built this home as sort of a staff project

[00:48:24] and then looked for a place to donate it.

[00:48:27] And they connected with settled setting on the on the hill in this corner of Roseville Central Park. Here's the submerging community for folks who have been previously homeless. The property values in this area would never ever allow for someone with no means to be able to live here, right? Like it's just it's you know but because we're a

[00:49:41] church because this is our land and this same way we did to sort of stumbling. But if there are churches out there that do already do serve homeless population, this might be a way to kind of build on any existing ministry that you may not have considered that the land itself

[00:51:04] around your church might be appropriate place

[00:51:07] to place a tiny home. the church here at Prince of Peace and we'll find contact information on our website, POP Rose from the org. And I'd be happy to visit with anybody or if somebody wants to, if you want to come and visit us, just call and schedule a time that we're eager to show off what we've

[00:52:22] done. So are our partners over at Mos actually in the midst of a big campus planning initiative, which is sort of like a strategic planning process. Thank you. We are thank you, Peter, for this really great interview. And I'm hoping that this is a help for people and other churches, both here in Minnesota, but across the country that might see this as an idea and to start to think about it.

[00:55:01] Well, it's a pleasure to be able to tell this story.

[00:55:03] You can hopefully tell that I'm pretty passionate about it.

[00:55:06] I'm really pleased that, I hope you enjoy the interview. As usual, there are links of interest related to this episode with Peter, and that will include information on the nonprofit that he talked about, which is settled, which is based in St. Paul. And thank you again for listening to this episode, and that is it for this episode of

[00:56:24] Church in Maine.