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 Area, one of many largest energetic 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.

As we speak, the barren hills of the Kern River Oil Area are nonetheless peppered with working rigs. However Oildale, inhabitants 36,000, has largely stagnated. Practically a 3rd of its residents stay in poverty, and neighborhood leaders grapple with excessive charges of opioid dependancy, dilapidated housing and industrial vacancies. The church is nestled in a quiet neighborhood of modest properties with overgrown yards and bleached white fences.

The housing authority, a county company charged with creating reasonably priced housing alternatives, noticed potential within the constructing’s swish touches and durable partitions. Its Sunday faculty lecture 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 neighborhood 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 search out steady 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 completely different phrases, and is now in a very completely different part,” mentioned Stephen M. Pelz, govt director of the housing authority. “Oftentimes while you get vacant buildings that aren’t offered straight away, 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 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 Challenge Cornerstone housing complicated.

As we speak, the hallways scent faintly of contemporary paint, and all 19 air-conditioned items are occupied by younger residents additionally getting a contemporary 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 items of housing. The venture 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,” mentioned Randy Martin, chief govt of Covenant Neighborhood Companies, a nonprofit neighborhood group that may handle the 2 areas.

The housing authority bought the storefront for $510,000 in 2022. As renovations started, Martin mentioned, the group handled drug addicts breaking in, stealing home equipment and beginning fires behind the constructing.

Nonetheless, the venture 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 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 youngsters. The transformed physician’s workplace is reserved for former foster youths ages 18 to 21. Tenants pay lease as they’re ready, on a sliding-fee scale, and utilities are coated.

Pelz mentioned the subsidies and maintenance can be coated 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 night time he would hear the creaking of the pipes and floorboards.

Cline, a Texas native, bounced round foster properties 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 flooring 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 mentioned of the setup.

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

Randy Martin is chief govt of Covenant Neighborhood Companies, a neighborhood group managing Challenge Cornerstone.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Occasions)

Challenge Cornerstone is one in a spate of current efforts Kern County has undertaken to create reasonably priced supportive housing choices for homeless individuals and people susceptible to being homeless. These working with foster youths know all too properly 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, mentioned the housing venture 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 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 outdated 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 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 take care of 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 Challenge Cornerstone.

Rosalinda celebrated her second birthday there in December, with a celebration within the outdated chapel. A stained glass picture depicting a shepherd lit up the room. The 2-year-old with a fast smile and excessive snigger ran up and down the steps, and so they danced on the stage, Medina mentioned.

“It undoubtedly might be spooky, particularly at night time when I’ve to examine all of the doorways and ensure every little thing’s secured,” Medina mentioned. “However while you fill this room up, it’s very hopeful and magical on the similar time.”