FRESNO, Calif. – Allysunn Walker often hears that her community wasn’t “left behind,” but rather “kept behind.”
That’s because southwest Fresno has borne the brunt of decades of redlining and disinvestment. As Fresno grew, this part of the city stayed largely the same.
To this day, Walker said, the area encompassing southwest Fresno has one grocery store and one bank. The zip code has one of the highest concentrations of poverty in the city.
But things have been changing.
The area recently opened a satellite college campus. And at the West Side Church of God, the community counts on monthly food distributions and mental health counseling on top of other community activities for residents.
The church is also where Walker runs her nonprofit. She is the president and CEO of the Southwest Fresno Community Development Corporation. It focuses on fighting chronic poverty and helping people find stable housing.
Housing availability and affordability are two main issues hitting the southwest Fresno community hard, especially the senior population.
“You have a lot of people who are falling out of housing and into homelessness because of lack of retirement,” Walker said.
California housing crisis
It’s no secret that California is hard to afford. When it comes to housing, no city or town is left out of the financial squeeze. But the West Side Church of God is doing something no other church in Fresno County has done before: it’s building affordable housing.
A 2023 law known as the Affordable Housing on Faith and Higher Education Lands Act allows churches and colleges to repurpose empty land and turn it into housing, as long as the nearby area meets the zoning needs for housing.
The law aims to fill a housing need for vulnerable populations, like students and families struggling to make ends meet. The law is one more tool for California’s fight against the lack of affordable housing.
Some recent estimates suggest the state needs about 1.3 million more affordable rental homes to meet the current demand for housing.
Churches often have thousands of acres of underutilized land. Some use it to build coffee houses, sports complexes, or thrift stores.
As the state’s housing challenges creep into an already struggling area of Fresno, helping to house seniors on fixed incomes makes sense, Walker said. The senior ministry is also the most active at the church.
One of the largest investors of the project in Fresno is the city itself.
“We wanted to create a place where [seniors] could age in place with dignity and affordability. They wouldn't have the threat of being displaced or evicted,” Walker said.
Meeting needs for seniors
On a one-acre lot behind the church, the Southwest Fresno CDC along with several of its partners plan to eventually build 21 affordable units. The housing will be open to any senior on fixed income in Fresno County who applies.
The average cost of the homes will be at or below around $750 a month. The first few cottages will be ready by early 2027.
Pastor Paul Binion oversees the West Side Church of God. He laments that many seniors are having to spend what little money they have on rent. He calls it the “rent burden” problem. That’s where residents are spending more than 30 percent of their entire income just on rent.
Binion said seniors often pay much more than that.
“We have seniors who are trying to make it off $1,800 a month of social security, and then pay $1,500 a month for rent – you can’t live like that,” Binion said.
Binion is the longest serving pastor in Fresno. The housing project, which will be named “Binion Cottages,” is named after him.
He has seen how many of the city’s problems have begun to slowly be addressed over time. But he said more community resources are needed to meet the needs of his community. He draws from his faith to reach out with what he can.
“The Bible is very clear that we are to love all peoples and care for people. And use the resources we have to help people,” he said.
The affordable housing project on church land is a new idea in Fresno County. Allysunn Walker of the Southwest Fresno Community Development Corporation said that she has already been asked to help out with similar projects.
But she insists she wants to get the project off the ground first, as well as start a bigger conversation around affordable housing.
“We’re happy to be the first, but we don’t want to be the last,” she said.
Her nonprofit is not a religious organization. And people who will soon live on the church property don’t have to be members of the church. But Walker knows none of that is the point. Instead, the project is about finding ways to give someone in need a place to live.
“When I see homeless people on the street, it breaks my heart,” Walker said. “[With] our elders, we felt that we could do something specifically for them and allow them to approach the end of their life with dignity.”
