Three years into planning to build affordable housing on the church’s property, First Baptist Church on East Eighth Street was accepted into a program that helps small and mid-sized cities develop projects that help build sustainable communities.
The program, called Strategic Capacity for Advancing Local Economies, is funded by the New Growth Innovation Network and will provide the church with additional funding for the project along with support and consultation in planning.
“So many churches are being forced to — with church in decline, membership is declining, finances are declining — churches are being forced to kind of look differently at the resources that they have,” said the Rev. William Terry Ladd III, senior pastor at First Baptist Church. “Why not use those resources that you have in order to address some social ill or have a social impact in the community that will make a difference?
“For the last five or seven years, we’ve really been looking at, internally as a church, how do we best maximize our impact with the church, not only in charity but in change?” Ladd continued. “We see this project as not a charity project, but we see something that’s going to make a systemic change here in Chattanooga.”
(READ MORE: Five things to know about state of affordable housing in Chattanooga)