Churches find new calling

A national organization is working with four struggling churches in Winnipeg to repurpose land into affordable housing.

Relèven, which is based in Montreal, announced its “Winnipeg declaration” Thursday in an effort to address homelessness and the affordable housing crisis in Canada.

Relèven CEO Graham Singh noted that Canada’s faith communities have about 30,000 acres of land, mostly owned by churches, which is about twice the size of the city of Vancouver.

Singh said “extraordinary good” has been done on that land over generations, shaping Canada’s social fabric — but now many of those churches are in danger of closing due to declining attendance and donations.

It is “unacceptable” to see buildings that could be used to address the housing crisis sitting empty while thousands of people across the country are homeless or lack access to affordable housing.

“Will these churches continue to close while the needs of society surround them?” Singh, an Anglican priest serving formerly in England and now Canada, said at a virtual news conference Thursday.

“I say, over our dead bodies will this waste continue unchecked while people die on our streets.”

Singh said the Winnipeg declaration is a call for faith groups, governments and the private sector across Canada to work together, adding it’s called that because the city sits at the centre of Canada, is a place where Indigenous and settler history is intertwined, and where “homelessness is a profound challenge.”

One of the churches collaborating with Relèven is St. Mary’s Road United Church, which is working to build affordable housing on its property.

“They’ve been a big help,” said Shaun Loney, a longtime member of the congregation, which is down to about 100 active members — too few for such a large building.

Relèven has helped the church see new possibilities for the property, and is working with the congregation to secure a developer and deal with various legal and zoning issues.

Rather than view the building as a problem, Relèven helped them see it “as a blessing in disguise,” Loney said, and a new way to “love God and love our neighbours.

“We’re trying to lean into that.”

The call to to action was born out of a roundtable the charity held in Winnipeg last April.

While turning underused churches into housing won’t solve homelessness, finding new uses for the buildings will prove “homelessness can be reduced, and in certain cases, come to specific ends,” Singh said.

Relèven is currently in conversation about the declaration with about 40 Christian groups in Canada, including representatives from the Anglican, United, Presbyterian and Catholic churches, along with the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.

A formal presentation is planned for Winnipeg in November.

“The goal is thousands of signatories and thousands of witnesses, enough to create a national movement,” Singh said, adding “this is a call to courage, a call to partnership, a call to act while there is still time.”

Also working with the charity is the Archdiocese of Saint Boniface.

“We are in conversation with them about ways to develop a property to serve a social purpose,” said Gisèle Gratton, financial administrator for the archdiocese.

The property was made available to the archdiocese by generous Catholics as a way to serve God and the community, she said. “It would be wrong to waste it.”

Gratton appreciates the expertise Relèven brings to the table, along with their connections in government and the private sector.

“We are being called to a new thing. We want to see what God is calling us to do with it in the future,” she said.

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