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The church on Oildale Drive and Minner Avenue has stood on the nook since 1954, constructed after an earthquake broken the Oildale Church of Christ’s constructing. Since then, the church has handed by a wide range of denominations and congregations till it was deserted in 2021.
However the Kern County Housing Authority noticed one other life for the church constructing, in an often-overlooked space of the county. Oildale, an unincorporated city north of Bakersfield, borders the Kern River Oil Area, one of many largest lively oil fields in California. The city was based within the early 1900s as employees flooded into the world to work the oil rigs. It’s the place musicians Buck Owens and Merle Haggard had been raised and formed.
At the moment, the barren hills of the Kern River Oil Area are nonetheless peppered with working rigs. However Oildale, inhabitants 36,000, has largely stagnated. Almost a 3rd of its residents stay in poverty, and neighborhood leaders grapple with excessive charges of opioid habit, dilapidated housing and industrial vacancies. The church is nestled in a quiet neighborhood of modest houses with overgrown yards and bleached white fences.
The housing authority, a county company charged with creating inexpensive housing alternatives, noticed potential within the constructing’s sleek touches and durable partitions. Its Sunday faculty lecture rooms may turn into studio and one-bedroom models for former foster youth nonetheless struggling to get their footing. The chapel, with its stained glass window, soft-lit chandeliers and partitions adorned with hand-written Bible verses, may very well be transformed right into a neighborhood room. So, over the course of two years, the church was given a second life.
“It’s been an anchor for the neighborhood for quite a lot of years and went by totally different phrases, and is now in a totally totally different section,” stated Stephen M. Pelz, govt director of the housing authority. “Oftentimes while you get vacant buildings that aren’t offered instantly, they find yourself having points or vandalism, or catching fireplace. It was good to have the ability to protect the constructing.”
With funding from Venture Homekey, the state’s multibillion-dollar effort to transform dilapidated motels and industrial properties into supportive housing, and in partnership with Covenant Neighborhood Companies, the authority bought the church from Shekinah Ministries in 2022 for $1.5 million. After intensive renovation, the location reopened in January because the Venture Cornerstone housing advanced.
At the moment, the hallways scent faintly of recent paint, and all 19 air-conditioned models are occupied by younger residents additionally getting a recent begin.
A few mile away in a industrial strip, the housing authority is making an attempt one other novel do-over: changing a former physician’s workplace — that additionally had a stint as a tattoo parlor — into 15 models of housing. The mission is in a tumbledown part of Oildale, located between an optical lens retailer and aquatic pet store. The storefront being transformed had been vacant for years.
“It was actually simply terrible, an eyesore for the entire neighborhood,” stated Randy Martin, chief govt of Covenant Neighborhood Companies, a nonprofit neighborhood group that may handle the 2 places.
The housing authority bought the storefront for $510,000 in 2022. As renovations started, Martin stated, the group handled drug addicts breaking in, stealing home equipment and beginning fires behind the constructing.
Nonetheless, the mission is shifting ahead. Every unit may have a doorbell and area for a mattress and kitchen. The plan features a entrance patio the place residents can calm down and socialize.
Housing on the church advanced is open to younger individuals, 18 to 25, who’ve aged out of the foster care system, together with their spouses and youngsters. The transformed physician’s workplace is reserved for former foster youths ages 18 to 21. Tenants pay hire as they’re ready, on a sliding-fee scale, and utilities are lined.
Pelz stated the subsidies and maintenance shall be lined by a mixture of rental earnings and state and native funding for rental help.
When he moved into the transformed church on Oildale Drive, Al’Lyn Cline, 22, was the one individual residing there for about two weeks. After months of building, the church started to “settle,” and at night time he would hear the creaking of the pipes and floorboards.
Cline, a Texas native, bounced round foster houses as a toddler. Earlier than coming to the church, he stayed at a sober-living dwelling with 12 different males. They shared one fridge, cramped loos and restricted parking area.
On the church, Cline has a studio that got here furnished with a microwave, range and fridge. He has his personal rest room for the primary time in years. His room — an area that used to carry cassette recordings of weekly sermons — is on the second ground and has a skylight that enables a flood of pure mild.
“It’s actually simply profound, and it has a uniqueness of its personal,” Cline stated of the setup.
Cline, who’s Christian, feels linked to the church in a spiritual sense as nicely. He tries to be respectful of the constructing, understanding its historical past as a spot of worship.
Venture Cornerstone is one in a spate of current efforts Kern County has undertaken to create inexpensive supportive housing choices for homeless individuals and people liable to being homeless. These working with foster youths know all too nicely that housing instability is a hazard they face as they age out of the system.
The county’s 2023 point-in-time depend discovered 1,948 individuals lacked everlasting housing, in keeping with the Bakersfield-Kern Regional Homeless Collaborative. About 48% of the inhabitants was sheltered, a determine that’s been trending upward because the county has expanded emergency shelters and transitional housing initiatives. About 120 of the homeless counted had been individuals youthful than 24.
Martin, with Covenant Neighborhood Companies, stated the housing mission is “stemming the tide of homelessness for foster youth.” Residents are assigned case managers and mentors to assist them discover instructional and employment alternatives, and may be taught job abilities on the group’s espresso store.
Isabel Medina, 23, is each on-site supervisor and a resident on the Venture Cornerstone advanced. At 13, she was faraway from an abusive dwelling and put in foster care. For years, she moved amongst foster households earlier than growing older out of the system at 18. She has struggled to keep up a steady job, working within the fields, at a mall, at Goodwill. She was homeless twice, and slept in her automobile for 4 months. At 21, she turned pregnant along with her daughter, Rosalinda.
With the assistance of a program supervisor at Covenant Neighborhood Companies, Samantha Imhoof Tran, Medina was made on-site supervisor at Venture Cornerstone.
Rosalinda celebrated her second birthday there in December, with a celebration within the previous chapel. A stained glass picture depicting a shepherd lit up the room. The 2-year-old with a fast smile and excessive snort ran up and down the steps, they usually danced on the stage, Medina stated.
“It positively could be spooky, particularly at night time when I’ve to test all of the doorways and ensure all the things’s secured,” Medina stated. “However while you fill this room up, it’s very hopeful and magical on the similar time.”
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