New Pisgah rescues foreclosed homes

The “mission” of New Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church, in Auburn Gresham, goes way beyond shouting distance of its physical facility on South Racine Avenue. The church’s community service organization is playing a major role in addressing the foreclosure issue that’s bedeviling Auburn Gresham and many other Chicago neighborhoods. Through the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program, it’s currently rehabbing six vacant, foreclosed houses comprising 14 homes or apartments in Auburn Gresham and one 7-unit building in South Shore.
 
 New Pisgah works through the church’s community service organization as a sort of general contractor, farming out most of the physical labor to sub-contractors.
 
“The dream of doing these houses was my dad’s,” said Stan Smith, whose brother Wayne is the church’s pastor. “As a church you can do certain things on Sundays and with the church members, but he had a desire to do something in the community.”
 
 
New Pisgah was started in 1966 by their father, the Rev. Sylvester Smith. According to Stan, their dad said, “I want to provide good housing that’s affordable where low-income folks can get in. And if there are programs with subsidies or help with the down payment those are the programs I want to go to. I want to be able to help someone get into housing.”
 
 
Since the early 1990s, New Pisgah has built a nursing home for seniors and a day care center, which is attached to the church at 8130 S. Racine. Stan and Wayne’s sister run the day care and the nursing home is staffed by church members. (They have another brother and sister as well.) They’re also in the process of building another housing facility for seniors, this time on South Halsted Street.
 
Through NSP, New Pisgah hopes to rehab 70 units of affordable housing in the next five years, many on Auburn Gresham blocks where the renovation of even a couple houses could make the difference between the area rebounding or sinking further into isolation and disrepair. Additionally, the church is involved with a state program that trains young men as apprentices, the first step to becoming more seasoned construction workers. The church claims to have contacts with many excellent local plumbers and carpenters, many of whom are out of work. NSP is putting them back on the clock.
 
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