The YIGBY movement

A church for sale in St. Paul, Minn. According to one estimate, by next year as many as 100,000 houses of  worship will have closed their doors. (Shutterstock)

YIGBY - Yes In God’s Back Yard. It’s a clever acronym as a counter to the NIMBY movement, Not In My Back Yard. Many assume NIMBY’ism is predominantly in conservative areas. Wrong, it's actually more likely to show up in more liberal neighborhoods.

In a recent piece by Jerusalem Demas in the Atlantic entitled “The YIMBYs Won Over the Democrats: A niche pro-housing movement has convinced mainstream Democrats of the need to build,” Demsas writes how YIMBY’ism (Yes In My Back Yard… will the acronyms ever end?!) advocates has organized and is effectively educating Democratic lawmakers that affordable and secure housing are essential to the American economy and well-being.

GIMA is an advocate of congregations building, buying, creating, permanently affordable housing. As a principal at one of Indiana’s larger, for-profit, affordable housing developers said to me, “We can’t solve this problem - you have to.” By “you” he meant the nonprofit and congregational communities. His position is that for-profit affordable housing developers can no longer make enough money to satisfy their owners and shareholders. I can’t dispute his claim and will take it at face value. His point is that we need more housing developers who can afford to not make a profit and can keep affordability permanent.

In this recent piece from Rick Reinhard in Governing Magazine (thanks to the Lake Institute for Faith and Giving for republishing), “YIGBY” is a hot trend, but there are better uses for some faith-based organizations’ surplus real estate, Reinhard contends there are cases when housing is not the best option. My primary criticism of his piece is the assumption that YIGBY is ubiquitous or even popular. While he cites several cities that are encouraging congregations to repurpose all or part of their buildings, it is still a very small number who are getting into actual housing initiatives. He gives an interesting list of considerations of when to Go and when to Pause.

Our experience is many congregations want to do something and are stopped by the idea that they’re too small, too poor, too ignorant. I contend none of these are true. My friend Reverend Doctor Reginald Fletcher, pastor of a 100-member church on the near east side of Indianapolis, has been buying houses in his neighborhood for 20 years. Just this year, his congregation built a 15-unit affordable housing development across the street from the church. They have single-handedly transformed a large portion of 21st street. And they did it by connecting with the people and resources who could help them realize their vision. Pastor Fletcher and Living Word are the benchmarks of what many congregations can do to my real impact.

Reinhard closes his article with, “The days of the single-use house of worship, sitting on a hill behind a picket fence with doors closed six days a week, should be over.” I say AMEN to that!