Community Development
Enlightening the mind one person at a time!
For the past four years, S.E.E.D.©, Inc., has been the vehicle for our community of believers to carry out the biblical mandate to care for the poor and needy by meeting their needs directly, or helping them find a way to get those needs met. For the most part this has taken the form of bringing them into our homes and our lives instead of the traditional methods of deferring to professionals and placing the needy in shelters or some government funded facility. Over the past year many people have been assisted in breaking the endless cycle of dependency.
Over ten years ago, during our tour in California and while working with various ministries, we started encouraging other faith-based groups to take responsibility for the unskilled untrained, individual welfare recipients and the homeless, just as we had done for many years. We thought if enough groups of 10 to 20 families would adopt a single welfare recipient or homeless person––doing what was necessary to turn his or her life around––it might cause a revolution in the social welfare system.
Unfortunately, we were a bit naïve about the capacity of other groups to do what we have done. Our success has been due to the community within which we live. This lifestyle means we have not only a group of committed believers ready to pour themselves out to meet the needs of our guests; we also have a place for them to stay. Other faith groups, though they may have a sincere desire to help, often lack the simple but indispensable component of a physical place to carry out this kind of ministry.
Government programs for the most part have traditionally treated the needy in a utilitarian way, with little expected of them, leaving the impression that they are not worthy of changing. But like a growing number of faith-based social ministries, S.E.E.D.©, Inc., strives for a meaningful non-condescending relationship that challenges the needy to become self-giving people of service themselves. In this new environment, people are empowered to break the cycle of self-defeating and socially destructive behavior.
We knew from our experience in California that our faith-based system could be successfully replicated, but the need for a physical space seemed insurmountable. Insurmountable that is, until now.
The Problem
The affordable housing stock, as measured by the number of total rental units that are available for struggling households without rental assistance, is declining. The number of such affordable rental units decreased by 372,000 units, a 5 percent drop from 1991 to 1997 (these are units available to households at or below 30 percent of area median income, assuming they spend no more than 30 percent of their income on rent).
The reason for this decline is that much of the housing stock for moderate and low-income people consists of apartment complexes built in the 1960s and 1970s with financing subsidized by the federal government as part of the War on Poverty. The mortgages are now being retired, and the owners are free to do as they will with the property. Many choose to raze the buildings and replace them with more upscale housing. Others elect simply to charge more rent for the existing housing while seeking to flip the property to a developer. Either way, the low-to-middle income people who depend on the availability of affordable housing in their communities are being squeezed out. During the next five years, contracts on two-thirds of all Section 8 housing units involving 14,000 properties and one million apartments are set to expire.
It is important to note that we are not talking about large scale public housing projects, such as existed in Los Angeles, New York or South Chicago, which everyone now agrees were social policy disasters. (U.S. News & World Report reported that HUD has slotted 96,000 public-housing units for destruction since 1992.) Instead, we are referring to privately owned and run apartment complexes that catered to working low to middle income people. The government subsidized the financing of these projects so that they would be built. In exchange the owners agreed to make sure that the rents were in line with the median income in the communities where these apartments were located. By and large, this was a successful effort. The loss of this housing stock presents a very serious challenge to policymakers who wish to contain a situation that is potentially disastrous.
Thirty years ago, our country might have chosen to solve this problem by pumping new money into federal housing programs. However, that is not the mood of the Congress or the taxpayers. If anything, we are moving in the opposite direction. According to the Columbus Dispatch, congressional budget cuts will eliminate new housing programs for the poor. There must be some way to solve this problem without having to rely on the old tax-and-spend approach of the past.
The Solution
We at S.E.E.D.©, Inc., believe we have found a unique solution. As a result of the 1986 Tax Reform Act, adjustments made to the IRS Code permit qualified 501(c)(3) charitable organizations to use the tax-free municipal bond market to provide financing for the acquisition of multi-family housing projects. A significant percentage of the units must be available to the poor and distressed.
During the upcoming years we will use this strategy to acquire housing units and/or apartment complexes in and around Columbia, SC. The purchases will be financed with tax-free municipal bonds issued by The South Carolina Finance Authority. We will also utilize the Presidents Faith-Based Initiatives to develop work programs and other support services for people in need.