Mission of Yahweh breaks ground on permanent housing for the homeless in Spring Branch area

Sixteen efficiencies for the formerly homeless are slated to open in the north Spring Branch area in January 2025. The housing will be permanent, coupled with caseworker services, and paid for entirely without government funding by Mission of Yahweh.

Once the two permanent housing buildings open, half of the campus’s housing will be for emergency shelter, with the other half split between transitional and permanent housing. Only women and children who have lived in the organization’s shelters will be eligible for permanent housing.

The new housing marks a new chapter for the Mission of Yahweh. For six decades, it has operated an emergency shelter for women and children, as well as transitional housing where they could live as they recovered financially or attended job training classes.

A coming soon sign shows the permanent supportive housing that will soon be built on Mission of Yahweh’s campus in the north Spring Branch area.

Since 2011, the overarching strategy of over a hundred Houston-area homelessness organizations, which coordinate their needs for U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funds into a single application, has been on permanent supportive housing as a cure for homelessness. That’s meant that shelters have been left largely to religious organizations that fund their operations through donations. Since they don’t use government funding, organizations like Mission of Yahweh are free to emphasize spirituality as part of their shelter programs. While the organization does not require people to be of any specific religion, they do require them to attend services because spirituality is seen as part of the path to stability, explained a spokesperson for the organization.

According to Richard H. Hill Jr., the organization’s executive director, the journey to these two new permanent supportive housing buildings started 11 years ago. Two nearby lots became available, and the organization purchased them with plans to expand its campus one day.

Then, it was a waiting game until Mission of Yahweh’s finances were in place to absorb the operational costs of an expansion, such as additional salaries, utilities and food. Now, Hill says, the organization has fundraised to cover $750,000 of the roughly $1 million construction costs. In-kind donations will cover the rest. HomeAid, the nonprofit arm of the Greater Houston Builders Association, helps with construction projects for the homeless by matching organizations with builders and vendors who will provide discounted services.

David Weekley Homes will be building the homes designed by Rivers Barden Architects.