In Kern County, an abandoned church gets a second life as housing for former foster youths

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 Discipline, one of many largest energetic oil fields in California. The city was based within the early 1900s as employees flooded into the realm to work the oil rigs. It’s the place musicians Buck Owens and Merle Haggard had been raised and formed.

Immediately, the barren hills of the Kern River Oil Discipline are nonetheless peppered with working rigs. However Oildale, inhabitants 36,000, has largely stagnated. Practically a 3rd of its residents reside in poverty, and group leaders grapple with excessive charges of opioid dependancy, 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 swish touches and durable partitions. Its Sunday faculty school rooms might turn out to be studio and one-bedroom items 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, might be transformed right into a group room. So, over the course of two years, the church was given a second life.

Isabel Medina is each on-site supervisor and a resident at Challenge Cornerstone. Like different younger residents, she is a former foster care ward who struggled to seek out secure employment and housing after growing older out of the system.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Occasions)

“It’s been an anchor for the neighborhood for plenty of years and went by totally different phrases, and is now in a very totally different part,” stated Stephen M. Pelz, government director of the housing authority. “Oftentimes while you get vacant buildings that aren’t bought immediately, they find yourself having points or vandalism, or catching fireplace. It was good to have the ability to protect the constructing.”

With funding from Challenge Homekey, the state’s multibillion-dollar effort to transform dilapidated motels and industrial properties into supportive housing, and in partnership with Covenant Group Providers, the authority bought the church from Shekinah Ministries in 2022 for $1.5 million. After intensive renovation, the location reopened in January because the Challenge Cornerstone housing complicated.

Immediately, the hallways scent faintly of recent paint, and all 19 air-conditioned items are occupied by younger residents additionally getting a recent begin.

A few mile away in a industrial strip, the housing authority is trying one other novel do-over: changing a former physician’s workplace — that additionally had a stint as a tattoo parlor — into 15 items of housing. The undertaking 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 group,” stated Randy Martin, chief government of Covenant Group Providers, a nonprofit group group that can handle the 2 areas.

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 undertaking is transferring ahead. Every unit may have a doorbell and house for a mattress and kitchen. The plan features a entrance patio the place residents can chill out and socialize.

Housing on the church complicated is open to younger individuals, 18 to 25, who’ve aged out of the foster care system, together with their spouses and kids. The transformed physician’s workplace is reserved for former foster youths ages 18 to 21. Tenants pay lease as they’re in a position, 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.

Al’Lyn Cline, a former foster youth, lives in a small however tidy condo at Challenge Cornerstone. It marks the primary time in years that he has had his personal rest room.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Occasions)

When he moved into the transformed church on Oildale Drive, Al’Lyn Cline, 22, was the one particular person dwelling there for about two weeks. After months of building, the church started to “settle,” and at evening he would hear the creaking of the pipes and floorboards.

Cline, a Texas native, bounced round foster houses as a baby. Earlier than coming to the church, he stayed at a sober-living house with 12 different males. They shared one fridge, cramped loos and restricted parking house.

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 permits a flood of pure mild.

Al’Lyn Cline shops his boots in a neat line in his condo.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Occasions)

“It’s actually simply profound, and it has a uniqueness of its personal,” Cline stated of the setup.

Cline, who’s Christian, feels related to the church in a non secular sense as effectively. He tries to be respectful of the constructing, understanding its historical past as a spot of worship.

Randy Martin is chief government of Covenant Group Providers, a group group managing Challenge Cornerstone.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Occasions)

Challenge Cornerstone is one in a spate of latest 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 effectively 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 accordance 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 Group Providers, stated the housing undertaking 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 might study job expertise on the group’s espresso store.

Isabel Medina, left, watches as her daughter runs towards program supervisor Samantha Imhoof Tran. Rosalinda celebrated her second birthday at Challenge Cornerstone, with a celebration within the previous chapel.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Occasions)

Isabel Medina, 23, is each on-site supervisor and a resident on the Challenge Cornerstone complicated. At 13, she was faraway from an abusive house 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 secure 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 Group Providers, Samantha Imhoof Tran, Medina was made on-site supervisor at Challenge 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 chuckle ran up and down the steps, they usually danced on the stage, Medina stated.

“It undoubtedly might be spooky, particularly at evening when I’ve to examine all of the doorways and ensure all the pieces’s secured,” Medina stated. “However while you fill this room up, it’s very hopeful and magical on the identical time.”