Six Baltimore Houses of Worship Earn Faith-Based Development Certificates
June 25, 2018
Contact: Office of Government and Public Affairs
Phone: 410.837.5739
Six Baltimore-based houses of worship earned real estate development certification, as the University of Baltimore's Schaefer Center for Public Policy and Enterprise Community Partners hosted the third annual graduation ceremony for the Baltimore Faith-Based Development Certificate Program on June 22.
The program offers five once-a-month sessions to educate faith leaders, their staff and congregants about the real estate development process to help in the creation of affordable homes and community facilities. The program provides both comprehensive classroom instruction and project-specific technical assistance. Each participating house of worship receives specific assistance from a development consultant for up to five hours per month for the duration of the program to help them get started immediately on pre-development items crucial for their project.
This year's participating houses of worship focused on development of community facilities and a program to promote homeownership.
"It is exciting to see these houses of worship develop the skills they need to effectively transform their real property assets into community assets," said Ann Cotten, director of the Schaefer Center. "We are honored to have been selected by Enterprise Community Partners as their partner in delivering this program, it is a perfect fit for our College of Public Affairs, Maryland's only college dedicated solely to public service."
The houses of worship that graduated on June 22 are:
- Friendship Baptist Church
- Manna Bible Baptist Church
- Metropolitan United Methodist Church
- Mount Lebanon Baptist Church
- New Solid Rock Fellowship Church
- Northside Baptist Church
The graduation ceremony featured presentations on planned development projects by the houses of worship, along with an evaluation of the proposed projects by a panel of experts.
"While the real estate process is new to these houses of worship, their deep understanding of community leads to development proposals that uniquely benefit neighborhoods," noted David Bowers, vice president and Mid-Atlantic market leader, Enterprise Community Partners. "The partnerships formed here are vitally important in helping the faith community create quality homes that are affordable and connected to community assets and resources that bring opportunity to residents."
Speaking at the ceremony were:
- Rev. Dr. Alvin C. Hathaway Sr., senior pastor, Union Baptist Church
- Ann Cotten, director, Schaefer Center for Public Policy at the University of Baltimore
- Roger Hartley, dean of the College of Public Affairs at the University of Baltimore
- Rev. David Bowers, vice president and market leader, Enterprise Community Partners, Inc.
- Lisa R. Hodges, program instructor and principal, Hodges Development, LLC
- Rev. Alphonzo M. Davis, whose Nazarene Baptist Church graduated from the program in 2017.
The University of Baltimore is a member of the University System of Maryland and comprises the College of Public Affairs, the Merrick School of Business, the UB School of Law and the Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences.
Enterprise Community Partners is a proven and powerful nonprofit that improves communities and people’s lives by making well-designed homes affordable. We bring together the nationwide know-how, partners, policy leadership and investments to multiply the impact of local affordable housing development. Over 35 years, Enterprise has helped created nearly 529,000 homes, invested $36 billion and touched millions of lives.