Our Pacific Northwest team is joining forces with local faith-based organizations working to address the affordable housing shortage and strengthen communities.

The Puget Sound Faith-Based Development Initiative (FBDI) will help faith-based organizations transform underutilized property into affordable homes and community-serving facilities. Training, technical assistance and predevelopment grants will support the development of hundreds of affordable homes across the region.

On Oct. 5, Enterprise welcomed 13 faith-based organizations to FBDI at an in-person gathering. Hosted by Urban Impact at their space in Rainier Beach, our FBDI partners exchanged the stories and experiences that led them to pursue a vision to leverage their land for affordable housing and discussed common challenges and opportunities. All participants will engage in a six-month training program beginning in late October.

"In the Pacific Northwest, Enterprise is committed to partnering with community to meet the significant need for affordable housing. Faith-based organizations have long been leaders in helping to address communities’ needs for housing stability,” said Emily Alvarado, Pacific Northwest Market VP, Enterprise. “We are excited to support faith-based organizations with catalytic investments, training and resources to realize their vision of building more permanently affordable homes."

Urban Impact and Emerald City Bible Fellowship in Seattle completed their first housing development in 2013 and are working on their second development in partnership with Mercy Housing NW. Steve Bury, the executive director of Urban Impact, said, “We are excited to be participating in Enterprise’s Faith-Based Development Initiative, both to learn and be a model of how churches, community organizations, and housing developers can collaborate in producing high quality equitable housing as a means to break the cycles of social, material, and spiritual poverty and build healthy communities.

“Collaborating with and learning from this diverse group of faith-based organizations from across our region presents a beautiful opportunity to model community building, practical work for justice and reconciliation across, ethnic, geographic, theological, and socio-economic differences.  True work for the 'beloved community', Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. envisioned and promoted," Bury said.

The participating organizations, located in King and Pierce counties, include:

• Bothell United Methodist Church, Bothell
• Cham Refugee Community, Seattle
• FAME – Equity Alliance of Washington, Seattle
• Greater Christ Temple Church, Tacoma
• Mt. Zion Housing Development, Seattle
• Nehemiah Initiative, Seattle
• New Beginnings Christian Fellowship, Kent
• Overlake Park Presbyterian Church, Bellevue
• Peace Lutheran Church, Tacoma
• Southwestern Washington Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Tacoma
• St. Vincent de Paul, Seattle/King County
• Trinity United Methodist Church, Seattle
• Urban Impact, Seattle

Seattle is part of a nationwide expansion of Enterprise’s Faith-Based Development Initiative, supported by an $8.5 million donation from Wells Fargo.

Enterprise’s Faith-Based Development Initiative first started in the Mid-Atlantic region in 2006, where it has helped create or preserve more than 1,500 affordable homes and one community-based health clinic, with thousands of homes now in the development pipeline.

With the training and resources provided by Enterprise’s Faith-Based Development Initiative, faith-based organizations will acquire the knowledge necessary to turn land they already own into desperately needed affordable homes.

Faith-based organizations participating in the program will gain access to:

• Funding: Support for market/feasibility studies and pre-development activities
• Training: Virtual and in-person trainings to help participants understand the ins and outs of the development process
• Technical assistance and tools: One-on-one technical assistance to help overcome obstacles during the development process, as well as access to informational tools and resources
• Access to experts: Information on development professionals including development companies, architects and designers, real estate lawyers and development consultants
• Peer-to-peer learning: Geographic cohorts of faith-based organizations will network and learn from one another as they go through the process of housing development, and a national summit will bring faith leaders from across the country together to advance program learnings and celebrate successes