As I begin writing this post it is the 1st of the month. For companies like ours, where we provide affordable housing to many people in South Billings, this day marks the day that rent is due. Have any of you ever been a landlord? Well, I have to tell you that this venture of being in the tenant/landlord relationship is all new to me since taking over the leadership of CLDI this past February. Over the years of doing work in the South Side of Billings, one of the obvious needs in the community was that of providing affordable, yet quality, housing. In a low-income neighborhood such as ours, this is not always easy to find. Drive by many larger homes in our community and you will find what was once a single-family dwelling that has since been made into several small apartment-type units. There are some properties that have as many as seven different units in the same building, and no, I am not speaking of a small apartment complex! And if a person is really desperate and in need of a place to call home, they can rent a room (typically around $200-300/month) where they will be provided their own room, however, all other space is shared – bathroom, kitchen, and living space. As you might imagine, these are not always the most desirable places to live and it is very unlikely a place you or I would want to call “home”.
As disciples of Jesus, we are to be a people driven with a burden, desire and passion to do the Lord’s work, but what exactly is that work? I often come back to Micah 6:8 in answering this question – “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to DO JUSTICE, to LOVE KINDNESS, and to WALK HUMBLY with your God?” (NASB). DO justice, LOVE kindness, WALK humbly with your God. If I’m looking for a “how-to” verse in the Bible, it seems that He lays it out pretty clearly for us in this one passage. As to that of doing justice, in part this is why CLDI is in the business of providing affordable housing. Many of our tenants are felons, and for obvious reasons, find it difficult to find a place that will allow them to live there. And if they don’t have a felony, many have terrible credit, so terrible in fact that most places will not risk renting to them. And some of our tenants are barely hanging on by a thread, just trying to survive month-to-month as they do their best being a single parent, raising their kids, working a job and providing a safe, warm place for their children at night. If I’m looking for a place to do justice in Billings, I need not look any further.
However, here is the irony I find in doing the Lord’s work… it isn’t always easy, in fact, it is almost never is! As I mentioned, I’m new to this position of overseeing properties that we own and manage as we seek to provide quality homes to persons in need. In just a few months I understand what a great need this is, but also, what a great challenge it provides to CLDI. At the end of June we were in the process of three evictions for past due rent of these tenants for $7,841, this not including late fees and lawyer fees. We spend approximately $5,000/month in mortgages alone (not including staff, property maintenance, etc.) in order that we may provide this affordable housing. You do the math, but when you are a small Christ-based non-profit, sometimes the margin does not work out in our favor, at least from a financial standpoint! More than likely we will never recoup this $7,841. In fact, we will likely lose this money and much more, but that is not the point. We are in the landlord/tenant relationship not for the sake of making money (because if so we need to change our location and clientele), but for reason of doing the Lord’s work and that of doing justice. Doing justice because this is pleasing to the Lord, but not only that, but that we may also be provided an opportunity to call people to a new-found life in Jesus Christ as we meet a tangible need in their lives, hopefully revealing a deeper need, that of being reconciled back to God through a life of faith in Christ Jesus.
In the small fellowship of believers that meets in my house on any given Sunday, our time of teaching was concluded with this passage yesterday – “Peter began to say to Him, ‘Behold, we have left everything and followed You.’ Jesus said, ‘Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last, first’” (Mark 10:28-31). How good it is to do the Lord’s work! CLDI will press on… “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).
By Eric Basye
