The Moravian Church community aims to help first-time homebuyers in Winston-Salem with new project

Last year, the Moravian Church Southern Province presented a proposal to the Winston-Salem City Council to build homes on 19 lots owned by the city. However, officials only approved four due to what they considered the group's lack of experience as developers.

The proposal was part of a collaborative effort called the Equitable Homeownership Project. It launched this year with a groundbreaking for those four new homes in the Southwest Ward.

Now, the church is looking to do more through the initiative.

WFDD's DJ Simmons recently spoke with Rev. Russ May about the project.

Interview highlights

On why the church became involved:

"The Moravian Church does this not just because they can, they do it because they should. There's a moral obligation right now for the Moravian Church to stand in this space as the community leads them to do this because of the history that the Moravian Church has played in inequities in our city that obviously dates back to slavery but even continues on to urban renewal projects."

On what makes this project unique:

"There is just no way that we can operate with market numbers and be able to help people to overcome poverty here in Winston-Salem. So what makes this project unique is that mission-driven housing expects this community to be able to rally together, especially in communities that have been historically marginalized, census tracts that have been under-resourced over the years and ignored out of planning and things like that. In these areas we're going to need not-for-profits, we're going to need communities of faith, we're going to need the people to come together ... and ultimately be able to create housing that we can sell without needing it to sell or create profit for people on the backend of it."

On what's next for the initiative:

"Currently we have a proposal for 10 additional lots and we would be hopeful that those might be made available by the end of 2025 so that we can do this for 10 more families or households."