Barnes Bequest Helping to Rebuild Lives, Massachusetts Conference, United Church of Christ

Massachusetts Conference Edition

Barnes Bequests Helps To Rebuild Neighborhoods

This newly renovated multi-family home in Worcester is part of the plan to help reverse the cycle of neighborhood deterioration – the goal of the Worcester Area Mission Society, UCC, and the Worcester Community Loan Fund. United Church of Christ congregations and their individual members, as well as the Massachusetts Conference, are longtime leading investors in the Fund, and through their donations have helped reinvigorate urban neighborhoods.

Barnes Bequest Helping To Rebuild Lives

by Marlene Gasdia-Cochrane, Editor
April/May 2006

It wasn’t Hurricane Katrina, but the rains that hit the Worcester area last October had enough punch to cause flooding of houses throughout the community. Compared to the devastating hurricanes, it was a minor inconvenience. Unless you live there – and you don’t have enough money to clear out waterlogged debris, get basements dried out, remove the mold, and repair the damages.

The Rev. Robert S. Bachelder, Minister for Mission and Service of the Worcester Area Mission Society discussed the difficulties low- and moderate-income families faced the day after the storm, as well as those they cope with every day. When one is living paycheck to paycheck and worrying about having enough money to pay the utilities and feed the children, home improvements fall by the wayside. When landlords don’t live in the area and can’t appreciate the living conditions, repairs are delayed. The back porch and staircase start to fall down; window panes are broken and not fixed; door locks break; and hope weakens. Multiply the delays over months and years and spread it house to house and block to block and the results are rundown neighborhoods. Businesses move out. Drugs infiltrate. Crime rates climb. The streets become a danger and the community feels abandoned, he explained.

That cycle of neighborhood deterioration has slowly been reversing itself with the help of the Worcester Area Mission Society, UCC, and the Worcester Community Loan Fund.

The Society is the designated social ministry arm of the Central Association of the Massachusetts Conference and provides a way for city and suburban churches to join together in mission. The Society works with congregations and other institutions to renew struggling communities by helping to create jobs, affordable housing, a better physical infrastructure, school programs, social services, and better community involvement.

Said Jim Connolly of the Elm Park neighborhood in Worcester, “Before, I was afraid to let my children get off at the bus stop; now, after the Mission Society involvement, this neighborhood is like a slice of heaven.”

Last year, the Worcester Community Loan Fund got a boost from the estate of Arthur and Sidney Barnes. These long-time members of the Second Church in Newton, UCC, made a generous bequest of $243,000 to be used to support the work of the Massachusetts Conference in the area of mission outreach and social responsibility. Upon the recommendation of the Commission on Mission and Justice Ministries, the Board of Directors used $50,000 of the Barnes gift to increase the Conference’s investment in the Community Loan Fund to a total of $73,000.

According to Paul Nickerson, Associate Conference Minister for Evangelism, Mission & Justice Ministries, this increased loan is an apt expression of the Barnes’ concern for mission and justice. “The bequest has helped build affordable housing, seed small businesses, re-invigorate formerly neglected urban communities and allowed us to continue to convey and carry God’s Good News to those around us,” he said.

Bachelder, who is founding president of that loan fund, explained, “We have an economic challenge today. Some banks are slow to invest in inner city neighborhoods. Our challenge is to reinvent our nation’s double commitment to economic opportunity and social equality. Practically speaking, this means rebuilding local neighborhood economies for the benefit of people who live there by ensuring they have access to credit and capital.”

Bachelder believes that if the community has access to low-interest loans to help with the upkeep of homes, then the fast decline of low- and moderate-income neighborhoods can be stymied. Bachelder explained that the Community Load Fund helps finance affordable housing construction and small business startups in areas typically ignored by lending institutions. By providing the first dollar into projects and then showing success, the Fund attracts more banks and capital into the area. Each dollar from the Fund leverages an additional eight dollars from banks and other institutions. And when a project is completed, the money revolves back into the Fund and is invested in another project.

“United Church of Christ congregations and their individual members, as well as the Massachusetts Conference, are longtime leading investors in the Fund and have been joined by many others from the wider church and secular community,” said Bachelder. “With past investments, over 300 units of housing have been developed with Loan Fund financing, and 12 small businesses have been seeded. An additional 16 home improvement loans have been made with many more on the way as well as over 200 down payment cash-advance loans to first time homebuyers,” he said.

“Having additional monies helps us become more ambitious in our offerings. With the $50,000 received from the Barnes bequest, we were able to go beyond our usual reach and put together short-term loan assistance to help home owners make those flood repairs, get their roofs repaired and their porches fixed.”

“Through various homelessness, peace, and justice programs, the MACUCC helps nurture the local church in developing a vision that is energetically focused on mission outreach, spreading the gospel, serving God’s people, and striving for a just and peaceful world,” said Nickerson. “The Barnes bequest helped expand our reach and truly fulfilled the wishes of Arthur and Sidney Barnes.”

Another $50,000 of the Barnes gift was lent to Boston Community Capital, an organization which does similar community lending in the Boston area.

For more information about the Worcester Area Mission Society, visit www.macucc.org or www.wamsucc.org.