Seeking Faith-Based Solutions to Housing

Seeking Faith-Based Solutions to Housing

From The Messy City Podcast by Kevin Klinkenberg

April 30, 2026 · 52 min

About this episode

Eli Smith discusses the Faith-Based Housing Initiative and its potential to address housing shortages through faith institutions.

Every so often, an idea comes along that makes so much sense it makes you wonder - why haven’t we been talking more about this? In that vein comes today’s guest, Eli Smith, who is pioneering something called the Faith-Based Housing Initiative . Eli describes it well, but there’s a fascinating juncture here of issues related to churches and faith institutions of all kinds; the societal issues around loneliness; and the lack of housing - especially meaningful, community-based housing. Eli and his partners help cohorts of faith-based institutions in certain markets to identify how they can develop housing themselves, often on excess land they aren’t using. While this runs up against a whole other set of issues that churches and temples face, it offers a glimpse at something very hopeful as well. Find more content on The Messy City on Kevin’s Substack page . Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here . If you’d like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5. Intro: “ Why Be Friends ” Outro: “ Fairweather Friend ” Get full access to The Messy City at kevinklinkenberg.substack.com/subscribe

People in this episode

Host: Kevin Klinkenberg

Guest: Eli Smith

Topics covered

  • housing
  • faith-based initiatives
  • community development
  • loneliness
  • churches
  • social issues

Keywords

  • housing solutions
  • faith-based housing
  • community-based housing
  • churches
  • loneliness
  • social issues

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Faith-Based Housing Initiative

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