Earthly Concerns: Religious Institutions and Real Estate with Judson Memorial Church, Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing, Manhattan Borough President’s Office, Housing Data Coalition, Riseboro Community Partnership and New York University Urban Democracy Lab.

3:00 PM, Room 111

This discussion brings together a pastor, data analyst, housing advocates, urban planner, and scholar to discuss the present and future of property stewardship among religious institutions in the rapidly gentrifying city of New York. As land values rise and congregations decline, religious institutions have begun to face a variety of dilemmas ranging from building maintenance and the dubious promise of landmark designation to the pressure to sell their land, property, and air rights for top-dollar development. At the same time, these dilemmas are additionally freighted with the need to adhere to social missions, which in most cases involves service to and advocacy for the poor, vulnerable, and, ultimately, those most at risk of displacement. While it is difficult to imagine policy, or even guidelines, that might uniformly apply to each institution, it is productive to identify some of the specific issues religious institutions are facing and review both existing solutions and more aspirational ones around which they and their congregations can organize. While the discussion will center on a New York context, we expect it to have implications for other cities facing similar gentrification challenges.

Earthly Concerns: Religious Institutions and Real Estate: Text

Panel organizers

Rebecca Amato

Rebecca Amato is the Associate Director of the Urban Democracy Lab at New York University. She earned her Ph.D. in United States History from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York and focuses her research and writing on urban space, place, and memory, with a special focus on mobilizing the public humanities for social justice advocacy. She has spent the last two years working with the Cooper Square Community Land Trust, the Catholic Worker, and former parishioners of the Lower East Side’s Church of the Nativity to transform the deconsecrated church site into low-income, accessible, and senior housing.

Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper

Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper is Senior Minister at Judson Memorial Church, a post denominational Protestant congregation in Greenwich village, which removed its pews in 1969 and is still experimenting with unique ways to use sacred spaces on behalf of communities and cultures. She is the author of 37 books and writes regularly for a variety of publications. She helped to found Bricks and Mortals, an NYC based organization of congregations and denominations dedicated to adaptive reuses for sacred spaces.

Stephanie Chan

Stephanie Chan is an Urban Planner with the Manhattan Borough President’s Office (MBPO), working in the areas of Community Boards 3, 6, 8, and 11. Stephanie’s work at the MBPO advocates for public participation, workforce development, preservation, and affordable housing in New York City. She earned her Masters in Urban Planning from Columbia University and her Bachelors in Urban Studies from the University of California Berkeley.

Jeremy Magno

Jeremy Magno is a member of the Housing Data Coalition (HDC), a group focused on stemming housing inequality in New York City through the utilization of public data. He holds a BA in Urban Studies from Queens and is a 2017 recipient of the Paul Davidoff Award for Community Service. He's published a case study of gentrification in Flushing for Shelterforce. Currently, he works as a building code and zoning consultant.

Ryan Cassidy

Ryan Cassidy is the Director of Properties for RiseBoro Community Partnership, where he oversees the operation of over 1,800 units of affordable housing in nearly 200 buildings. Ryan has developed and monitored the construction of over 1,000 units of affordable housing ranging from two-family home ownership programs to large multi-family complexes with retail and community facility components. He supervised the construction of the first multi-family affordable Passive Houses in NYC and is a PHIUS Certified Passive House Consultant.

Earthly Concerns: Religious Institutions and Real Estate: List