Wooden bollards and empty lots extend for almost the entire three blocks of Edward Street.
A small white church with outsized parking lots, and an adjacent yellow house are all that interrupt the deserted stretch.
“Most of this has been vacant land for, oh gosh, since I've been here. Probably 20 or 30 years,” said Pastor Fred Johnson, his voice fading as if lost in the emptiness.
Johnson’s First Genesis Baptist Church is a short walk from here, down Hudson Avenue.
“It's been a cycle of continual disinvestment and decline,” he said of the neighborhood. “So we're looking to lift it up.”
Johnson and First Genesis Development Corp., a separate nonprofit created by the church, plan to build 45 single-family homes and a four-story, 95-unit senior apartment building in this neighborhood off Hudson and Upper Falls Boulevard.
First Genesis is one of several housing development projects in the works for northeast Rochester, all with one thing in common: They all are led by churches.
“It's not necessarily church work,” Johnson said. “It's Kingdom work, right? So it's building the community.”
Churches being involved in housing development is nothing new. Providence Housing is a well-established, nonprofit housing development corporation affiliated with the Roman Catholic Diocese here in Rochester.
And historically Black churches across New York and the nation have been doing this work for years, often teaming up with nonprofit developers. But that movement has been slow to reach Rochester — and these neighborhoods — until now.
By the numbers
“This is the Crescent area, ZIP code 14605,” Johnson said, “which from all the metrics that folks have collected from the state and so on, is the second poorest community in New York state ... and the biggest need of many needs is quality housing.”
The child poverty rate in this neighborhood hovers near 50% with a median household income of $23,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Statewide, it’s 14% and $82,000, respectively. Banks have been less willing to loan here, he said, so repairs like new roofs and other upkeep of the aging housing stock went undone.
"So it just began to decay, you know?" Johnson said. "We have seen a decline over the last decade or so that has been more substantial than in previous years."
Though far short of the thousands of affordable housing units officials say are needed citywide, the First Genesis project would be the first private development of new homes for sale in the northeast in decades.
“If you’re trying to stabilize a community, it’s housing,” said City Councilmember Michael Patterson, who represents the northeast district. “It’s about housing, housing, housing.”
Other Baptist churches like Peace Missionary and New Bethel are working on their own housing developments in northeast Rochester — following the lead of Zion Hill, which led off this growing effort. Zion Hill Apartments, its latest effort, opened two years ago on Dr. Samuel McCree Way southwest of downtown.
This isn’t housing for church members. As Pastor Franklin Ross at Peace Missionary explained, it is open to anyone.
“You can believe or not believe,” he said, “but we're here to show you the love of God by serving our community. Amen.”
Peace Missionary has teamed up with other churches and nonprofit developer DePaul Properties on a $36.7 million development called True North. Two new apartment buildings on Central and Portland avenues would total a combined 70 units, and an outpatient clinic on North Street would offer mental health and drug treatment services.
“That's personal because of my past, because of my history, and because of the path that God has delivered me through and from,” he said of the clinic that will involve the Finger Lakes Area Counseling and Recovery Agency. “So that was a part of the vision always.”
For perspective:
- Zion Hill’s project was $13.5 million and numbered 45 units for seniors.
- First Genesis’ project is $10.5 million for the first 22 houses, with construction expected to start this winter. The total project could add another $35 million in investment. The city has built more than a dozen single-family houses on nearby streets through its Buy the Block program. And it’s coming into the First Genesis target area with home-improvement grants, and plans to improve curbs and street lighting.
- New Bethel is in the early planning stages but has amassed more than a dozen properties along Lyndhurst and Scio streets.
The church's role in development
Low-income housing doesn’t generate big profits. But nonprofits are tax-exempt and get preferential treatment in government programs. And the state — which plays a big role in project financing — is looking at ways to ease zoning regulations for faith-based development teams to spur more affordable housing construction.
The First Genesis project has funding from ESL Federal Credit Union and New York state, as well as the city and Monroe County, with the latter two directing federal pandemic relief dollars to the development. Peace Missionary has similarly tapped a number of government sources.
“Churches for a long time have been the pillars of their neighborhoods,” said Scott Procious, president and CEO of Rochester Management.
The nonprofit developer’s client list includes Zion, First Genesis and New Bethel.
“They understand what the neighbors and the people and residents in their neighborhoods are dealing with,” Procious said.
In some cases, the churches are finding uses for and selling excess land. Or, like with First Genesis and the apartment building, the church gets first dibs on buying and operating the property after the 15-year state tax credit compliance period ends.
But pastors say this is more about mission.
Church work already extends beyond the chapel. Food pantries tackle hunger. Outreach efforts tackle job training, financial literacy, and public safety. Bringing a spiritual component to community development fills what Ross sees as a void. And what Johnson sees as providing a level of stability that is needed in all other aspects of life.
“You're building brick and mortar, you're building houses,” Ross said, “but you're not building up people.”
A number of local churches that have established nonprofit development arms also are working on starting a credit union or micro-lending organization that might help attract banks that otherwise have shied away from neighborhoods like Upper Falls in the city.
An example in Buffalo
Buffalo is an example of what’s possible. Specifically True Bethel Baptist where Darius Pridgen is senior pastor.
“A church is a business for God, is my feeling,” Pridgen said. “And at the end of the day, you got to know what your mission is. And our mission was our own neighborhoods.”
True Bethel bought and moved into an old grocery store. In the 20 years since, the development arm of the church has built and rehabbed houses, opened a Subway sandwich shop and a Dollar General, creating jobs for young people.
“I didn't want to drive into church every single day through a neighborhood that was devastated,” Pridgen said, “and not do anything about it.”
Pridgen is known beyond the church. He was president of the Buffalo Common Council for a decade before leaving office this year. And he is known beyond Buffalo.
“I have been to Rochester several times to speak to pastors, really at the invitation of your former Mayor Lovely Warren,” he said. “And she even sponsored a bus of pastors to come here and see the projects that we have done here.”
But most churches — be it in Rochester or Buffalo — never get a project off the ground.
“I tell pastors all the time, if you are trying to put up housing in order to have a payday or in order to keep your church running, you're going to be in for a rude awakening,” Pridgen said. “Especially right now, with what the cost is of construction.”
It’s the stubborn ones like Pastor Johnson at First Genesis who keep going.
Johnson has logged eight years pushing the First Genesis project to this point, a timetable extended by the pandemic. His background is in finance. He spent 20 years at Kodak. And he wrote his dissertation on economic development and housing in African American communities.
"I just had a community resident come to me because she heard that we were building houses, and she were interested to get some information," he said.
The woman said she, her husband and four children were in a rental house paying $1,900 a month in rent but couldn't find other options.
"I said, 'Well, you can get a new home if you qualify, make sure your credit (is good), and you can pay half of that, or, you know, maybe two-thirds of that, and have a home that you are generating equity and ... so that's kind of the struggle of many families. It's not that they don't want to pay for what they have. It is the ability to have access to it.”
