Peace Church is building for Santa Cruz
Peace Church on High
Street has a vision. As a member of the church, I know we want to build up community in our neighborhood and contribute to the civic health of Santa Cruz.
We are doing this through an endeavor called Peace Village, a mixed-income housing project on land we own behind the church.
Peace Village is not, as some critics have argued, a commercial effort. We are partnered with a housing not-for-profit. More than 20% of our new apartments will be income-restricted inclusionary units permanently affordable to low-income and very low-income occupants. Another 25% will be affordable by design for below-median income occupants. In addition, by management policy, we will accept HUD Housing Choice vouchers for qualifying lowincome tenants in still more units. There will be a resident manager.
Do I need to remind you how much this is needed?
My husband and I moved to Santa Cruz this past summer. One of the first things I noticed in this town is the number of unhoused persons. One cannot go a block in the downtown area without seeing someone sitting on the sidewalk with their belongings piled on a shopping cart or trudging along with a huge backpack that weighs them down.
Yet, people even with children and grandchildren walk by them as though this is normal.
Because it is.
Frankly, learning to ignore people in need saps the moral fiber of a community. These unhoused folks are our neighbors, and they need our help.
Helping the unhoused is only one aspect of the Peace Village vision. The multiple-income dwellings will also provide additional housing to our sorely depleted stock.
As my husband and I explored the town as new residents, I realized that I felt young. Santa Cruz is visibly aging out, and that is not a healthy thing for a community. The reason is simply that younger people cannot afford to live here. My neighbor down the street confessed to me that she'd love to have her children and grandchildren move to Santa Cruz, and they want to, but they cannot afford the housing.
There are so many “help wanted” signs in coffee shops, restaurants and bars. The needed help does not come because those who would want these jobs can't afford to live here. And yet, Santa Cruz boasts a constant pipeline of young, bright people coming through its university. But they leave. No housing.
Our neighbors around High Street and throughout Santa Cruz should realize we are implementing the vision of Peace Village for them and you. A community can atrophy if it does not get a constant infusion of generational diversity. A community can become coarse from moral callousness.
Up on High Street, it is our hope that those in our immediate vicinity will get to know their new neighbors through our planned arts center, coffee drop ins, and the other activities we already host.
Peace is made in community, neighbor by neighbor.
Susan Thistlethwaite has been published in the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and the Huffington Post. She is the retired president of Chicago Theological Seminary as well as a retired tenured professor. These days she writes mystery novels. She and her husband live in Santa Cruz.
Frankly, learning to ignore people in need saps the moral fiber of a community. These unhoused folks are our neighbors, and they need our help.