A BIT ABOUT US
Mission
BPC Housing is an expression of the mission of Brookhaven Presbyterian Church, leveraging its members’ talents to provide opportunities for spiritual growth through prayer, financial literacy education, and cultural exchanges through the means of affordable housing.
Introduction and Background
BPC Housing is a fully owned subsidiary of Brookhaven Presbyterian Church with the aim to tackle housing affordability and wealth creation for families in need while also pursuing innovative methods of closing the wealth gap in accordance with biblical principles. Brookhaven Presbyterian Church believes that to those to whom much has been given, much is expected. As John the Baptist said in the Gospel of Luke, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.”
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The aim of the BPC housing program is two-fold – doing our part in our community to address some of the most intractable policy issues of our time – namely, the rapid gentrification and affordable housing crisis disproportionately impacting lower-income communities while modeling out the Church’s duty to be a light embodying God’s Kingdom on this earth.
​It's no secret that a significant wealth gap exists in America today. Both the Congressional Budget Office and a recent Columbia University study estimate that, while the top 10% of American families saw their wealth grow from 1989-2013 by 54% (averaging ~$4 million per family), the bottom quarter of households saw their wealth shrink by 6% over the same period (with the average family now in ~$13,000 of debt)[1] [2]. For Brookhaven Presbyterian Church in its neighborhood, this is seen especially in the Buford Highway corridor through Brookhaven, Chamblee and Doraville.
Lower-income individuals in the Brookhaven and the surrounding areas are being priced out of the neighborhoods that they have called home for decades. Without the opportunity to amass enough wealth to escape a cycle of dependence, many individuals will face possible homelessness or destitution or potentially be forced to uproot their families in search of additional opportunities.
While the global Church would be hard-pressed to come up with a solution to these systemically rooted problems with the stroke of its pen, BPC is blessed to be in a financially stable enough position to formulate a localized model that can inspire communities around the country to act in tangible ways to help families who, through no fault of their own, find themselves in dire economic straits with little in the way of transferrable liquid assets.
The goal of BPC Housing is to provide the participants with a base support at the end of their term with the disbursement tightly governed by legal documents and restricted to three main uses: Education, Housing, and Health Care.
Program Model:
BPC Housing seeks to utilize three competitive advantages that the church possesses over for-profit competitors in the housing market: the lack of a profit motive; time; and pro bono work from members. Utilizing these three resources, our model creates wealth at little to no cost to our church by holding fully owned properties and holding a significant proportion of renters’ rent in escrow to be returned to them at the end of the duration of the program.
Program Design:
Phase 1
​With the blessing and approval of the Deacons and Session of Brookhaven Presbyterian Church, and thanks to the generosity of individual supporters and community partners, BPC Housing purchased our first property in early 2021.
There are currently three families participating in phase 1 of the program. Two families are living in the property that was purchased in 2021, a duplex designed for multi-family housing. The third family is living in an apartment located in the parsonage on the Brookhaven Presbyterian Church property.
To participate, each family went through an application process to identify their need of assistance for the long-term betterment and empowerment of their familial unit and the families are essentially “renting” the properties for four years at a cost slightly under comparable surrounding housing opportunities. The majority, around 66%, of the rental payments are deliberately set in escrow for each family to inherit at the conclusion of the program.
Ultimately, each family participating is being provided with consistent affordable housing for the four years that they are in the program. They will also leave the program with $30,000 in equity to use towards future investments of housing, health care or education. The particular goals for each participant will be set in conjunction with their financial coach.
Phase 1.5
Phase 1 has been a testbed for the future shaping of BPC Housing. Overall, it has been a success start but we recognize that there was a significant learning curve in the early stages of the program. The families who are currently participating are scheduled to complete the program in May 2025. In order to aid the current families in finishing well, during, Brookhaven Presbyterian Church has created a leadership team to provide a financial coaching element as well as to relationally connect with and care for them. The financial coaching will equip the families to make wise investments with the money they will receive as a result of the program.
Phase 2
Moving forward, BPC Housing plans to work with our local partner organizations, in particular Presencia and Buckhead Christian Ministries, to help identify and select future candidates for the program. One of the main partnerships will be with a local non-profit that provides financial literacy classes. Participants will be accepted into the BPC Housing program after they complete this financial literacy course.
In addition to the duplex property purchased in 2021, BPC Housing plans to expand the program by purchasing other houses for future participants Due to revised internal financial modeling and high real estate appreciation rates, phase 2 will reimagine this same program utilizing a a “rent to own” component. Participants will pay market rent , 50% of which will be used for program cost and 50% will be held is escrow. At the end of a five-year period, the participants will be able to buy their current house from BPC Housing with a conventional loan using the money that was saved out of their rent payments over the previous 5 years as a down payment.
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Integration of BPC Housing and Brookhaven Presbyterian Church
In order for BPC Housing to be a true expression of the mission of Brookhaven Presbyterian Church, the church has set goals to strive for in the years to come. These goals as follows:
· To have an updated Philosophy of Ministry for Brookhaven Presbyterian which includes a deeper awareness of cultural diversity.
· To create new small groups as a result of closer personal relationships between church members and program participants.
· To become a hosting church, allowing new ministries to use its facilities for a reasonable rent.
· To plant a church in the community where the BPC Housing participant live.
As these goals suggest, Brookhaven Presbyterian Church desires for BPC Housing to be more than a transactional relationship between the participants and the church. One of the values of Brookhaven Presbyterian Church is “human flourishing”. As such, we hope to relationally connect with the participants to see them flourish is all aspects of their lives.
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