What's at stake:
Fresno is joining the national Yes in God’s Backyard movement, which encourages churches to build affordable homes amid the nation’s housing crisis.
Bishop Paul Binion has lived in southwest Fresno for nearly five decades, long enough to see development flourish across the city while his own neighborhood was left behind with a legacy of redlining and racial segregation.
When he first arrived to the city in the 1970s, most Black families lived in the southwest because they weren’t allowed to live elsewhere. Realtors were instructed not to sell homes to Black or Mexican families in other neighborhoods and risked losing their businesses if they did.
Fresno residents in the 93706 zip code alone have a life expectancy about 20 years shorter than north Fresno, according to a 2014 Fresno County Public Health study.
Those decades of exclusion, he said, created a false perception that southwest Fresno wasn’t “worthy” of investment.
“These are hardworking people,” Binion said. “Families, professionals, business owners, doctors and lawyers live here. But when leadership, city government or business leaders, treats a community like it’s not worthy, that attitude spreads. I’ve questioned every mayor and city council about it. Southwest Fresno has always been overlooked, and that’s got to change.”
Binion, of Westside Church of God, in partnership with the Southwest Fresno Development Corporation, is leading the first project in Fresno County to lease church-owned land to a nonprofit developer for affordable housing. In partnership with the development corporation, the church plans to build 21 small cottages for seniors on a one-acre parcel on its campus on West California Avenue.
Binion’s project is part of a national movement called Yes in God’s Backyard (YIGBY), which encourages churches to use their land to build affordable housing. The YIGBY movement began in San Diego in 2019, when advocates for the unhoused worked with lawmakers to make it easier for churches to build housing without needing local planning board approval.
“We have members here who are paying 80% of their income for rent, and you can’t survive like that,” Binion said. “With this project with seniors, the need is tremendous, and many places are becoming unaffordable. They can have the comfort and peace of knowing, ‘I can live, I have the resources I need, and I can pay my rent.’”
The success of the San Diego project led California to pass SB 4, the Affordable Housing on Faith Lands Act, in 2023. The law takes the concept statewide, allowing churches, religious institutions, and nonprofit colleges in California to more easily build affordable housing on their property. It streamlines zoning and environmental rules to help turn underused land, like parking lots, into homes for low-income residents.
Fresno joins the growing YIGBY movement
In Fresno County, researchers at the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley identified nearly 1,900 acres of land owned by faith-based institutions that could qualify for development incentives under the new law, though challenges such as financing and limited development expertise remain major obstacles. About 46% of Fresno’s church-owned parcels are in single-family neighborhoods — areas where SB 4 could incentivize new apartments.
David Garcia, co-author of the Terner Center’s 2023 report, said Fresno County is well-positioned for SB 4 projects, noting that local churches typically have larger properties and more infrastructure than other suburban property owners.
“Many of these organizations are already serving vulnerable members of the community,” Garcia said. “It actually makes a lot of sense that they would be interested in expanding their services to include housing, because it may be really aligned with their broader mission.”
However, Garcia emphasized that affordable housing should be strategically located near transit, schools, parks, and retail, and that coordinating faith-based sites with city and county housing plans could help accelerate and simplify development.
In fact, the report also noted, while nearly 40% of the identified land was located in “high-resource areas,” only 7.2% of the church land is located near major transit stops.
Other challenges, Garcia said, include financing, securing reliable development partners, and building the necessary expertise, since most faith groups have little experience in housing development.
“For a lot of these groups, their mission is not to build and maintain housing,” Garcia said “It may be aligned with their broader mission of helping community members, particularly those who are vulnerable, but building housing itself is a whole different skill set and requires many partners, consultants, and government officials, making it a complex process that can be really hard for an organization to take on.”
The Southwest Development Corporation, the nonprofit Binion co-founded with three others in 2016, has worked steadily to overcome those challenges. Operating as a full community development corporation, it focuses on homeownership, neighborhood revitalization, and housing justice in southwest Fresno.
They’re trying to acquire and renovate roughly four homes per year, revitalizing the area while contributing to the city’s larger plan to add 1,000 homes in the area.
The organization recently secured a five-year, interest-free $2 million social impact loan from Mechanics Bank to purchase and rehabilitate blighted homes in the 93706 area, creating opportunities for first-time homebuyers.
“I just had a vision — why couldn’t southwest Fresno have what every other part of Fresno has?” Binion said. “Why not stores and shops here? Why not new homes? Why not development?”
Allysunn Walker, president of Southwest Fresno Development Corporation, said the organization has already expanded opportunities in the community by preparing loan- and credit-ready homebuyers and helping existing homeowners address challenges.
The development corporation also offers workshops in financial literacy and robust, multilingual homebuyer education for low- to moderate-income families.
“The church has to involve itself in this housing crisis,” Walker said. “We’re not developers looking for profit. We’re stewards of resources God has given us, and this is one way we can use them to serve our neighbors.”
They’ve already raised nearly $1 million in grants to build senior cottages. The homes, expected to be completed by late 2026, will rent for $500 to $750 per month.
In Fresno’s 93706 ZIP code, the Small Area Fair Market Rent for a one-bedroom housing is $1,050. This amount can vary based on the 90% and 110% Small Area Market Rates, which are the minimum and maximum payment standards the local Public Housing Authority can set under normal conditions.
It was Binion’s idea to focus on seniors. Walker said the project began after surveying seniors in the church’s senior ministry, which hosts monthly luncheons with guest speakers on topics like retirement and health.
The vision for Walker and Binion goes beyond building cottages. It’s about creating a close-knit community with on-site management, shared social spaces, and supportive services that help seniors live safely while staying connected.
Partnerships with local organizations will also provide resources to seniors, including the Fresno Metro Black Chamber for rideshares, St. Agnes Medical Center with its mobile medical and potentially dental units, Meals on Wheels, the Fresno-Madera Area Agency on Aging, and the West Fresno Family Resource Center, will provide a range of supportive services.
“Our mission is to meet needs,” Binion said. “To bring hope to people who feel forgotten. To show them they are worthy and that this community is worthy of investment.”
Challenges with faith-based housing initiatives
Garcia said congregations looking to build affordable housing face a host of financial and procedural hurdles, including high impact fees, restrictive land-use regulations such as height and bulk limits, and lengthy approval processes for site plan reviews and permits.
These challenges, he added, drive up costs and often discourage smaller faith-based organizations from pursuing housing projects.
Garcia said California favors affordable housing projects in higher-resource, higher-opportunity areas, meaning Fresno churches building in those neighborhoods could be more difficult. These areas sometimes lack transit access or other key amenities, which can further complicate efforts for faith-based groups hoping to build.
Année Kim, CEO of YIGBY, said that one of the biggest challenges faith-based organizations face when trying to develop affordable housing is navigating the complex real estate process.
“These communities need expert help so the question is, how do they go about obtaining that, and what choices do they have?” Kim said. “They can sell their land, lease it, or develop it themselves. But that depends entirely on their financial and human resources, and sorting through those options can be very challenging for the faith community.”
While she said the difficulties are similar across the country, Kim noted that the high cost of construction makes the process especially difficult in California.
When it comes to permits, she said the fees vary by locality, and while there are some exemptions for affordable housing, they can still be significant. This in turn, she said, makes it hard to deliver truly affordable units.
Fresno County offers several funding programs to help build or preserve affordable housing. This year, Clovis has begun implementing new policies to build more affordable housing by reducing zoning and financial barriers, following a long legal battle with Fresno-based homeless advocate Dez Martinez that ended in a settlement after several court losses.
Kim said there is currently no state funding specifically available to faith-based organizations building affordable housing.
Churches do have many options, though, Kim said, such as a partnership with a developer through low-income housing tax credits, or private funding. Faith-based institutions, Kim added, are often well-suited to serve as landlords for affordable housing.
“They care more about affordability than profitability,” Kim said. “Their mission drives them to prioritize housing for people earning below 80 percent of the area median income. But with construction costs so high, balancing affordability with financial feasibility is a delicate process.”
She noted that SB 4 has garnered national attention and inspired similar efforts elsewhere, but what determines whether similar laws succeed isn’t politics. Kim said it’s local control as “many municipalities don’t want to give up authority over what gets built and where.”
Fresno’s zoning code is among the most lenient in California, allowing housing in many commercial areas with few restrictions. On Nov. 6, the City Council will consider expanding ministerial housing approvals to more zones. The move follows the city’s recent approval of an 82-unit apartment complex at West Herndon and North Prospect Avenues — a year after rejecting the same project and losing a court fight, which angered many northwest Fresno residents.
How does this compare nationally?
The YIGBY movement has since gained traction nationwide. In September, Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) reintroduced the bipartisan Faith in Housing Act (S.2720) in the senate, which would provide grants and technical assistance to faith-based organizations and universities to help them develop affordable rental housing on their properties.
“Faith communities have long led the way when it comes to feeding the hungry, housing the poor, and serving the most vulnerable among us,” Warner’s office shared in an email statement to Fresnoland. “As we work to tackle the nation’s housing crisis, I believe we need to pursue policy solutions that empower churches, mosques, temples, and other religious institutions committed to addressing housing insecurity.”
A companion bipartisan bill in the House, introduced by Reps. Scott Peters (D‑CA) and Chuck Edwards (R‑NC), would let Congress step in to override local zoning rules when necessary. It does this by relying on federal laws that protect religious land use and Congress’s authority over interstate commerce, making it easier for faith-based organizations to build affordable housing even if local rules would normally block it.
The bill requires that most units serve low-income families or individuals experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness, with a focus on veterans and people with disabilities.
In an interview with Fresnoland, Peters said the bill allows faith-based institutions “to carry out their mission on the ground” by housing those in need, calling it “a statement of values” and “an example for other communities to follow.”
“This is consistent with allowing people who want to make these kinds of housing projects part of their faith ministry to do so,” Peters said. “And I think it’s an empowerment that is consistent with the way a lot of members think from across the country, in both parties.”
