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Religious Properties Preservation

Steeples, towers, and domes punctuate the skyline, define places, and identify buildings which house a variety of indispensable social services. In Boston, as across the nation, religious architecture embodies some of the most ambitious collective expressions of human creativity. More than almost any other type, religious buildings define the visual images we use to think about stable neighborhoods and communities. What these buildings say to us and how we treat them express a great deal about our enduring values in the face of diversity and change. It is therefore quite telling that many of them have roofs that leak, masonry walls that are cracking, and steeples that are structurally unsound. The cost of the accrued deferred maintenance is beyond the reach of most inner-city congregations.

A vast majority of historic religious properties are neighborhood resources that offer important social programs to disadvantaged communities, including day care for low-income families, English classes for immigrants, shelter and food for the homeless, and services for the elderly. It is doubtful whether the government could or would step in to fill the gap, if these activities are forced to terminate because of failing structures.

In addition to sponsoring social programs, many of the buildings are used as inexpensive meeting space by independent groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and other organizations that could not exist if they had to lease at a market rate.

In this, Boston is no different than cities across the nation, as evidenced by a study published in 1998 by Partners for Sacred Places. The study, Sacred Places at Risk: New Evidence on How Endangered Older Churches and Synagogues Serve Communities (1), catalogued the myriad social services provided by historic churches and synagogues in America's inner-cities.

Specifically:

- 93 percent of inner-city congregations with older buildings open their doors to the larger community.

- Children and youth benefit more than any other group from the social programs provided by the congregations of aging inner-city churches or synagogues.

- On average, these congregations each provide space to four ongoing community service programs.

- More than 76 percent of these congregations use their older buildings to provide food and clothing programs.

- On average, the subsidy provided by congregations to their community programs is about $140,000 a year, or 16 times what they receive in return from the users of their space.

- 21 percent of the inner-city churches studied have major structural problems.

- Their congregations are facing an average of $225,000 in repair bills.

There is a critical need for funding programs addressing religious properties preservation. Many private foundations and public funding sources are reluctant to grant money for the preservation of historic properties that are used for religious purposes. Yet, these buildings are as important to the city’s heritage as non-religious historic sites. In 1991, HBI published Religious Properties Preservation: A Boston Casebook targeting twenty-nine religious properties having uncertain futures. This study served as a point of departure for the Steeples Project, which HBI created five years ago to address the need to preserve some of the city's most distinguished architecture and the social and community services housed there. It is the only program of its kind in Massachusetts.

Without technical assistance, as well as the fund-raising motivation and project validation provided by matching grants from Historic Boston and other sources such as the Massachusetts Historical Commission's Massachusetts Preservation Projects Fund, many of these architectural treasures could be lost within the next two decades.

The goal of the program is to preserve historic sites, to maintain structures that house numerous social services, and stimulate renewed community involvement in buildings that serve as neighborhood landmarks. The program awards competitive matching grants for three purposes: 1) to engage architects to carry out comprehensive assessments of the buildings, 2) to conduct major repairs to steeples, domes, and towers, as well as to the exterior building envelope, 3) to illuminate steeples, domes, and towers, giving priority to areas that will enhance the after-dark streetscape of inner-city neighborhoods and impact the city's skyline.

HBI makes funding decisions without respect to religious denomination. The only criteria are: the historic and architectural significance of the buildings, the structural condition, the number of people in the neighborhood served by the social programs housed in the church buildings, and the capacity of leadership to carry out new initiatives, recognizing that effective leadership often emerges in the wake of a small seed grant for technical assistance.