750 affordable homes to be built in Montgomery County under Enterprise Community Partners initiative

Listen to this article

Joined by members of the faith community, Enterprise Community Partners, Montgomery County and Truist announced Monday the launch of Enterprise’s Faith-Based Development Initiative in Montgomery County, where it will partner with faith-based organizations to convert their unused land into affordable homes.

The program, which will help up to seven houses of worship as they develop new housing on their vacant property, is supported by $385,000 in funding from Montgomery County and $200,000 from the Truist Charitable Fund to support new FBDI cohorts in both Montgomery County and Baltimore County. The program was launched with a “clarion call” at Mount Jezreel Baptist Church, a church in Silver Spring.

Faith-based organizations across the country own tens of thousands of acres of vacant or underutilized land. As costs for land and housing remain high, Enterprise’s initiative enables them to serve their communities in new ways by creating affordable housing. The initiative will provide specialized training, technical assistance and funding over two years to participating houses of worship as they plan new developments on their land.

Since its inception in 2006, the Faith-Based Development Initiative has helped create or preserve more than 1,500 affordable homes and one community-based health clinic in the mid-Atlantic region, with thousands of homes now in the development pipeline. Enterprise is working with more than 100 houses of worship in Baltimore, Prince George’s County, Washington, Atlanta, south Florida, New York and Seattle with a projected pipeline of 8,500 affordable homes.