Five Baltimore Houses of Worship Earn Faith-Based Development Certificates
June 19, 2019
Contact: Office of Government and Public Affairs
Phone: 410.837.5739
The University of Baltimore's Schaefer Center for Public Policy and Enterprise Community Partners will host the fourth graduation ceremony for the Baltimore Faith-Based Development Certificate Program on Friday, June 21 at 10 a.m. at the University of Baltimore's John and Frances Angelos Law Center’s Moot Court Room, 1401 N. Charles St.
The FBDI certification 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.
Graduating houses of worship include:
- The Archdiocese of Baltimore
- Created For So Much More Worship Center
- Mount Pleasant Church and Ministries
- New Mount Joy Missionary Baptist Church
- Sharp Street Memorial United Methodist Church
The graduation ceremony will feature presentations on planned development by the houses of worship, including a conversion of a former school into housing. A panel of experts, including Thomas Houlihan, of Capital One Bank, and Phil Porter, of Enterprise Housing Credit Investments, will evaluate the proposed projects.
Speakers at Friday's ceremony will include:
- Ann Cotten, director of the Schaefer Center for Public Policy
- Roger Hartley, dean of the UB College of Public Affairs
- Rev. David Bowers, vice president and market leader, Enterprise Community Partners, Inc.
- Rev. Michael A. Gaines, Sr., Manna Bible Baptist Church, an alumnus from the 2018 Baltimore Faith-Based Development Certificate Program class
- Lisa R. Hodges, program instructor and principal, Hodges Development, LLC
Enterprise Community Partners is a proven and powerful nonprofit that improves communities and people’s lives by making well-designed homes affordable. The organization brings together the nationwide know-how, partners, policy leadership and investments to multiply the impact of local affordable housing development. Over more than 35 years, Enterprise has helped created nearly 585,000 homes, invested $43.6 billion and touched millions of lives.
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.