The How & Why of Collaborating In Your City: A Housing Case Study

How can faith-based organizations, civic leaders, and business leaders join forces to tackle city-wide challenges? This episode dives into three powerful case studies focused on housing affordability, showcasing how collaboration is driving real change in Colorado. You’ll hear firsthand stories from:

• Stu Davis, founder of COS I Love You, on how churches, businesses, and civic leaders in Colorado Springs are working together to address housing and community needs.
• Jessica Dominguez, owner of Love Thy Neighbor Real Estate and director of Abundant Ground, on how Denver churches are reimagining land use to create affordable housing.
• Michelle Warren, president of Virago Strategies, on advocating for groundbreaking policy changes to unlock housing potential on faith-owned properties.

These leaders are meeting their cities’ toughest challenges with creativity, persistence, and faith. Their stories will inspire you to reimagine how collaboration can bring God’s hope and life to your own community. 

On Working Better Together:

"And even though our temptation is to sometimes want to be the deliverer of support, a meal, a shelter bed, a hand around the shoulder, we also get to partner with agencies and organizations who do that every single day. And so Matthew 25 can be exercised by handing somebody a meal. It can also be exercised by providing additional resources and firepower and sustainability to the organizations who do that very thing, whatever problem it is that they're trying to solve. So I'm a big believer in both, and I just think that it's worth the opportunity for us to step into those partnerships and create the kind of collaboration that I think can happen when we do." -Stu Davis

On Challenges of Collaboration:

"So partnership is key. Having Michelle and Brian in my corner has been so great. I think the challenges with getting development going is the amount of time it takes, the amount of money it costs just to do some pre-development work. I also think that, oh, I know that churches are kind of waiting a long time before making the decision, and then it puts them in a spot where they have to make maybe a quick decision where they're not able to take their time to do their due diligence." - Jessica Dominguez

On Ego:

“And so we really need to understand that the whole process of collaboration, which is also in government called democracy, is its strongest when we have all the voices there having the opportunity and equal voice to speak into it. So I would just say is come full of conviction, but hold your positions with a little bit of open handedness so that you can build bridges to other people." - Michelle Warren

RESOURCES

• Download the episode transcript
• Learn more about the Denver Institute's FOR Campaign 
• See the full Tamarac Scale 
• COS I Love You Website (Sign Up for thier Newsletter Here!)
• “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish” (John 1:14 MESSAGE)
• Abundant Ground Website
• Learn More about Empowering Faith and Educational Institutions to Create the Housing Their Communities Need

GET INVOLVED

• If you are a church or faith-based nonprofit leader, would you read and consider signing this Letter of Support to allow churches greater ease and lower cost in developing creative housing projects? If you aren’t a faith leader, would you share this with your pastors or other organizational leaders in Colorado who might lend their support?
• If you are a business leader and interested in signing a Letter of Support to allow churches greater ease and lower cost in developing creative housing projects, please check back on this page soon for the link to sign!