FROM Moving Forward With More Main Street Housing

This is a rendering of one of the units facing Main Street.
It will be raised to allow it to be built in the Flood Plain.

 Flat River Outreach Ministries (FROM) is a a steady feature in my Brag About Lowell file. Over 20 years ago the now retired local pastor, Roger LaWarre, had a heck of an idea. His vision was for the local churches to band together and created an organization to help local people - with the co-operation of almost every church in the area. BOOM - Flat River Outreach Ministries was born.

FROM tackles real world challenges faced by people every day - food insecurities, housing, transportation, and others - including annual help with tax returns. Once upon a time, I found myself in a financial mess and found help from some agencies that were not the government. I had recently moved to the Lansing area, was working two part time jobs and ends were not meeting. I got help from one organization that filled my fuel oil tank and relied on help from a food bank for a couple of months. This is why we have supported FROM since we opened in 2002. Their Food Bank is top drawer with an emphasis on healthy eating. They have a great resale shop - you can see everything they do by following this link: Flat River Outreach Ministries 

A few years ago, they bought a residential home on Main Street and have transformed it into a nice place to live. A place that provides much needed AFFORDABLE housing. I wrote about the success of this effort in 2023. Priess explained that their goal is "supportive AND affordable housing.: Read about it here: Main Street Housing

"We are doing life with people," is how Wendie put it to me. "We are working with people to help them through situations that might end in evictions." She continued by explaining that FROM also expects accountability from residents and they do expect rent to be paid. FROM does not have deep pockets to provide free housing or subsidize rent from residents. Think of Main Street housing as a hand up rather than a hand out.

That effort has been such a success, that FROM now wants to expand their affordable housing on the same piece of property to incorporate three more buildings with the capacity to house up to 40 more individuals and/or families. This will take place in three housing units. Here is the proposed layout:

I recently met with FROM Director Wendie Priess. She was nice enough to walk me "thru" the two bigger homes facing Main Street. They had marked the existing grass with indicators showing a rough layout of the buildings. Those close to Main Street will have eight and seven apartments respectively in their studio, one and two bedroom units. The two facing Kent Street will be 3 bedrooms each.  

There are so many GRRRREAT aspects of this project. First and foremost, the housing model FROM has put together is a proven winner. They made it work in Main Street Housing. They need to strike a balance of sustainability while keeping rent affordable. They do NOT need to demonstrate a profitable bottom line to investors, they want the housing to pay for itself and have done so in the existing multi-residential home.  With that balance in mind, rents at this point in time are going to be $750.00 a month for 1 BR/efficiency units, $810.00 for 2 BR and only $950.00 for the 3BR units. 

When I found myself in Lansing with two part time jobs, I found myself unable to qualify for any type of government assistance. I was in that terrible gray area that so many working poor people find themselves in: I was making too much money to get help, but not enough money to pay my bills! Being located in a small town like Lowell puts FROM in a similar gray area: They are not a big enough project to qualify for assistance, but research clearly indicates affordable housing is much needed in Lowell. The three unit price tag has a $3.3 million dollar price tag.

Speaking of the price tag, when the numbers came in along the the truth that there would be no help from government agencies, Priess found herself thinking that maybe the expansion plans needed to be scrapped. Lowell is a generous town, but could FROM really raise over two million? She began to earnestly pray about the situation with the realization in mind that maybe FROM had bitten off more than it could financially chew.

Her answer came in 2020 when she was contacted by the Phillip Rice Estate with the glorious news that FROM had been left close to one million dollars by "Uncle Phil" and they were excited about helping with housing. As a side note, Wendie told me that this amount was double any Federal monies FROM had hoped to secure. Not only that, but once funds from the Rice Estate were secured, Priess found that many other doors seemed to swing open including partnering with Eastbrook Homes and the ICCF Community Homes program - a decades old organization in West Michigan. You can read more about the ICCF here: ICCF LINK.

Thanks to Uncle Phil, partnerships were formed with
the ICCF and Eastbrook Homes to make this a reality on Main Street.

"Doors were opened to us that were closed in the past," Wendie said. "It completely restored our faith in the project." 

Thanks to all of that, the 3.3 million has been reduced to 2.2 million dollars and the project, while still in need of funding and volunteers, is moving forward. The goal is to start the project sometime between April and June of 2025.

Rest assured this project is not a seat of the pants dream from Wendie or a couple of Board members. They took the time to research and document the need for affordable housing in Lowell. Their goal is to created nice, safe living spaces for individuals and families in our great little town with the goal of keeping it supportive and affordable. This is accomplished by the efforts of a vast array or volunteers and supporters. There is no way I would even attempt to list them here, but their efforts are paying off marvelously in everything FROM does. 

As a business owner on Main Street since 2002 and a Lowell resident for the past 7 years, I cannot wait to see this project come to completion. If you have caught the vision for affordable housing in Lowell and want to play a part in it, please reach out to FROM. They love it when more and more people become involved.

Flat River Outreach Ministries

11535 Fulton Street 

Lowell, MI 49331

Arianne Hall is a great contact person for this project. Tell her "Cliff sent me." 616-897-8260 or send her an email at arrianneh (AT symbol )fromlowell.org. I took the @ symbol out of her email address to stop the bots if possible.