In November, the Rev. Patricia Dutcher-Walls, Moderator of the 2024 General Assembly, visited Evangel Hall Mission (EHM) in downtown Toronto. It was a familiar homecoming, as Pat had been a member of the EHM Board of Directors in the early 2000s when they built an 84-unit apartment building that is now called home by over 110 adults and children. She continues to be an advocate for housing, and is part of a redevelopment project hoping to build housing in her home church in B.C.
During the late 1990s, the Board of Evangel Hall Mission built Portland Place, a 46-unit apartment building for people who were unhoused. What motivated the board to build again to create the Adelaide St. Residence?
The EHM Board was aware of the desperate need for affordable housing—and at the time we weren’t even facing the same level of crisis as we are facing now. Evangel Hall had been around for 100 years as a street mission, and we were proud of that, but we knew that we could only do so much for people without housing. Once someone has housing, then you can really start to see a difference in their life. We wanted to explore what we could do, and the presbytery was willing to hear what we had to say. There was a funding program in those years that worked with the provincial, federal and municipal governments to get housing built, and that gave us the window to secure funding. The board said, let’s go for it!
The building process is long and not easy. What kept the Board motivated when things got hard?
It was seeing the clients who came to the drop-in centre every day. We were proud of what we were doing to help them, but we all knew they would do so much better if they had reliable housing. And when you looked around at the homelessness in the community, you couldn’t ignore the fact that there was a lot of need for housing. These people aren’t just clients, they’re not just numbers or statistics, they’re human beings. So, it was the stories behind who would benefit from the housing, and the fact that we could see the need every day, that prompted us to say, “Let’s keep going!”
How do you feel like you were able to reflect the values of EHM in the final product?
The housing expressed EHM’s value of supporting dignity—this meant that the size of the units were big enough to really say to somebody, “You can be proud of where you live now!” We had a couple of different ideas about the type of housing we should build, but we went with slightly larger sizes because we felt it was better for the dignity of the people who would be living here.
Why should Presbyterians care about housing and homelessness right now?
Jesus says, “Tend my lambs, feed my sheep.” And I think the call of the gospel is very clear that we are not Christians just for ourselves. Worship is important, fellowship is important, and spirituality is important. But if that’s not married to a sense of justice and helping our neighbours, then I don’t think it’s a full expression of Christianity.
I think there’s a risk, when churches focus on helping their community but only define community as what’s inside the church building. Too often, a congregation doesn’t know their neighbourhood. They don’t really know who their neighbours are. In some cases, there will be people who are unhoused on the street, but people scurry past them, instead of saying, “That’s our mission right on our front step, how can we help?” And in my understanding of the gospel and of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, we need to be thinking, “Who are we called to be, not only for ourselves, but for our neighbours?” And that biblical call has to be the motivation. If it’s housing or a senior’s program or an afterschool program—there are many ways to serve the neighbourhood. It doesn’t have to be housing. In some cases, though, housing is exactly the right thing to do. In other cases, it would be better to do something else. But in every case, the common thread as Christians is asking how we serve our neighbours, not just ourselves.
Brock Winterton, EHM Board President; the Rev. Dr. Pat Dutcher-Walls, Moderator of the PCC; Ainsley Chapman, EHM Executive Director; and the Rev. Rebecca Jess, EHM Vice President.
What does being “stewards of our land” mean to you?
I think we need to start with a reminder of why most churches do land acknowledgements—they acknowledge that this is not “our” land. Ultimately, this is land that’s part of the Creator’s world. In terms of the largest biblical and theological understanding, we are just caretakers of this land, called to steward it with the values of keeping Creation healthy. And in terms of Canadian history, this land was not ours to begin with because it was inhabited and cared for by Indigenous peoples.
My home church does the land acknowledgement every week, and people ask why we do it. Our response is that we need to be reminded that we are guests on this land, and we need to tend it with the same care that it’s been tended since time immemorial. The idea that it is not our land, and that its use is for the good of the people of the land, is a Christian biblical value. And it was, and continues to be, a value of the Indigenous peoples who live here. Those values need to be at the heart, I think, of what churches do with land.
Many Presbyterian churches across the country are looking at making changes to their buildings and how they use them. A lot of them are struggling to see how housing could or should be part of this. What would you say to inspire them?
I think the main thing is to look at who are your neighbours, and that requires opening your doors and meeting your neighbours. I think there are some churches that have slipped into a silo mentality. And for some of them it’s understandable how that happened, but it’s not a helpful attitude when you’re looking at the theology of helping your neighbours. If you’re in a situation where every day you walk outside and there are homeless people around your street, if there are hungry people around your church property, if there are seniors who do not have proper care or who are underhoused, if there are families who are immigrants or refugees who are eight people in a one-bedroom apartment—then you’ve got a call from your neighbourhood to at least consider housing.
Does this location need housing, and could we contribute to that? That’s an actual question, and not an implied rhetorical question. Housing is a huge project. You need to go into it with your eyes open and excellent advice and support—but if the neighbourhood is calling you to do this, then you need to listen to that call. And even if the land does call out for it, your church may just be too old and too tired to actually pull off a big project. But then maybe someone else needs to use this land, maybe it’s about collaborating with other churches in the area, or going to the presbytery and saying, “Can you help us? We’d like our land to be used for housing to help our neighbours and maybe just a corner of a building that might be our church.”
We are churches, and the congregation certainly should be motivated to help the neighbourhood, but you don’t help the neighbourhood at the expense of your own connection with God and each other. Now, I do not believe in the approach that says, “Let’s get ourselves right with God first and then later do mission.” I think that’s a false understanding. And some churches have ended up never getting to mission because our spiritual needs seem endless. So, you’ll have this lovely worshipping congregation that worships itself right into a dead end because they never get outside to do mission. But you also can’t go out and keep doing the mission unless you have the spiritual sustenance that worship and fellowship bring you. The other side is that when you build mission that also helps your spirituality; it’s all connected.
Are there any wrong reasons to be developing housing or things that could seem like a good idea at the first, but really take a church off track?
I don’t think churches should develop housing in order to solve a budget crisis. That is not going to be effective. The type of housing project that will really make money, for example building high-end condos—I don’t think we should be in the business of housing people with big salaries. That just doesn’t strike me as aligned with Christian virtues. But developers will come along and say, “Look at what I can build for you, and then you’ll get this much income and you’ll solve the church budget crisis.” However, that just allows a congregation to go on being a little enclave with a nice budget that is not connected with its neighbours. And in fact, in some cases, that kind of building contributes to the gentrification of a neighbourhood, which is harming the people that we should be helping. It might be that a blend of both affordable and market-rate housing is the right mix.
Another factor that churches struggle with is grief, and the fear that comes with change. How can we support churches who are stuck in this place of grief and fear?
The fear is real, and we need to pay attention to that. One way is to make sure the project and all the conversations about it are not just about “moving on” without recognizing the loss involved for some in the congregation. If it’s only about loss, or if the loss isn’t honoured, it’s going to be very difficult for a certain portion of the congregation, like the person whose grandmother built the church, for example, to get on board with the project. If we decide that, for missional reasons, we should be doing housing of some kind, the accompanying question is, “How will that enhance our legacy? And what will we take from our legacy that might be incorporated into the building?” If you need to tear a church down to build the new property, what do you save from that building that might become part of the new building? And you say to your architects, “We know you’re not used to doing this, but we have these stained glass windows and we want them incorporated into the building. We want some space that looks like a church in the building.” That way, you help people see that some of who they are gets carried into the new project.
It’s about creating an understanding of how to maintain a legacy—spiritually, theologically, but also physically. What are we saving? We have a foyer in the front hall—line it with pews with name plates on them that say, “This was donated by so-and-so in 1901,” and now your legacy is in your front hallway. It’s about helping people make the transition, and then they know their grandmother’s love for her church is still with them. We have people who have long, long memories and whose grandparents and great-grandparents actually did build this church, and that is not to be treated lightly. But it doesn’t mean you don’t move forward. It does mean you have to do a lot of listening…and then be creative.
Thinking about redeveloping your church property? We can help! The PCC is seconding some of the time of Ainsley Chapman, executive director of Evangel Hall Mission (EHM), to devote to congregations as they consider the future use of their land and buildings. For more information, contact Ainsley Chapman at achapman@presbyterian.ca.