PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Old First Reformed United Church of Christ cut the ribbon Tuesday on a long-sought goal: 34 units of permanent, supportive housing on its grounds in Old City for the formerly homeless.
The church did not have to move heaven and earth to build the housing, but it did have to move a historic 1760s-era house out of the way, lifting and sliding it on rails half a block over to open up the housing site on North Fourth Street, across from the back of the U.S. Mint.
It also had to win over its well-to-do neighbors to support a development for the formerly homeless, which Pastor Michael Caine said proved easier than he’d thought.
“I kind of was worried … that we were going to be crucified, that everyone was going to get mad at us for this,” he said. “And for the most part, the community has said, ‘We want to support you. We want to make these new neighbors our neighbors.’
“This is home, as far as I’m concerned.”
Michael Chandler is one of those new neighbors. After leaving prison and living in a shelter and a recovery house, he enjoys his efficiency with a view of Old City — and a big closet.
“It’s been a long time since I had my own closet, my own space like this where I can hang clothes up and all that, so it’s great,” he said. “This is all home.”
The Old First House project was built by the nonprofit Community Ventures and a dozen other partners, largely using low-income housing tax credits. Tenants are supported by 34 project-based housing vouchers from the Philadelphia Housing Authority, which has made a 20-year commitment, totaling $8 million, to keep the units affordable.
Old First Reformed conceived the plan more than eight years ago. It had been providing a temporary shelter during the winter months, but leaders wanted to offer something more permanent and better than cots on the floor.
Caine said the church had long been known for its live Christmas creche, and now, he hopes, it will be known for its Old First House development.
“I am so happy,” he said, “to be the church that built a building at Fourth and Race, right where that creche celebrating a homeless family used to be for all those years, to remind us that it’s sacred to find shelter and to recognize people we might overlook,” he said.