Building better homes by investing in community

Three short years ago, the Love Church was empty. Originally named the Lake Spenard Baptist Church when it was built in the 1950s, it sat on the corner of Spenard Road and 34th Avenue between an abandoned adult entertainment venue, a closed down gas station and an old post office. After acquiring the property, the nonprofit housing developer Cook Inlet Housing Authority (CIHA) originally planned to convert the land into an overflow parking lot for its incoming apartment building.

Today, the building remains, and it goes by a slightly different name: The Church of Love (COL). Next door where the abandoned adult entertainment venue used to be stands the now-completed apartment complex. Although the residents don't have the additional parking lot the COL land was intended to become, what they got instead was something far more important than what a few extra parking spaces can provide.

"It's a cultural hub and neighborhood center that serves the larger community," describes Candace Blas.

Blas is a lifelong Anchorage resident, UAA alumna in international studies and has served double-duty as manager of COL and community outreach coordinator for its parent company CIHA for the past year and a half.

Before she joined the organization, Blas reveals that COL's fate as a parking lot was all but concrete. However, it became increasingly clear that CIHA's Spenard properties could be part of a shared campus with wider impacts for staff, residents and the surrounding community.

In 2015, that possibility began to take shape when CIHA was contacted by local artists including Bruce Farnsworth with the Light Brigade and Sarah Davies, creator of the 100Stone project.

"Before they could tear the building down, CIHA was approached by artists with the need for a large space to work on these big art projects," Blas says. "They went, 'Well, we have this giant church next door that we're going to tear down, so you're welcome to use it before we do.' Pre-COL, artists were having a blast in this building. But something happened: CIHA was able to see a demonstrated use of this building and recognize its value."

What CIHA witnessed first-hand was art's power to build and enrich communities. This realization matched perfectly with the organization's mission to revitalize the Spenard neighborhood and contributed to their evolution to be seen as community developers rather than solely housing builders.

"CIHA empowers people through housing, so a logical step is that you can't just give someone a house, you need to develop the community that house is situated in," Blas shares. "So a space like COL is an asset to the community. It's a place where people can gather and it supports the local economic development as well. It really is the center of this campus we're creating here."

To capitalize on the new direction, CIHA applied for, and received, a grant from the like-minded ArtPlace America. As one of the six organizations awarded the grant, CIHA was given $3 million over the course of three years to explore how using artistic strategies can lead to better community building.

With the resources from the ArtPlace grant in hand, it was time for CIHA to do their homework. CIHA contacted the board at Anchorage Community Works (ACW), a longtime art cooperative located in the Ship Creek area of downtown Anchorage with a similar penchant for empowering community through the arts. The intention was to establish relationships with more of Anchorage's artists and to research already existing resources and community organizations.

While the ACW board was more than happy to share their knowledge, one board member in particular took it a step further: Blas herself.

"I felt this sort of call to be involved. So when CIHA came to talk with ACW, I followed up. I was instantly captivated by the space and the community building they were doing. I told them if there was any way that I can be involved, let me know, I want in," she recalls.

Before Blas ended up on the board at ACW and became perfectly poised to join COL, she already had a proven background rooted in community outreach and engagement.

"I had aspirations of being a professor of Russian literature or as a backup plan becoming an FBI agent. But I've always been an organizer," says Blas. "The person who logically becomes the president of the Russian Club and organizes cultural events, film screenings, potlucks and parties for the other students — that's a natural inclination of mine, to organize groups and produce things for people."

During a break in the middle of completing her bachelor's degree, Blas took a yearlong AmeriCorps Vista position managing the Teen Underground media program for the Anchorage Public Library.

"I was tasked with taking it from this cool high-tech but understaffed room and filling it with teens and programming," she describes. "That's where I developed my project management skills, my interest in marketing and my interest in outreach. Those innate skills when I was Russian Club president, that's when it started to emerge more as a career."

Having successfully rebooted the Teen Underground program, Blas returned to UAA, citing, "I'd never go back to get my degree if I didn't go back now. So I paused my career, got my degree and continued on my path after that." She celebrated her graduation by accepting an offer to manage a political campaign, naturally.

"During that campaign, I found that I actually had an interest in the creative aspects, so the graphic design, website development and video ads. I pursued those skills and became self-employed as a freelance graphic designer, web developer and project manager," recalls Blas.

After enthusiastically reaching out to CIHA, Blas was offered a contract position as an assistant to help lay the groundwork for COL and to coordinate events at the venue. The response from Spenard and Anchorage as a whole was overwhelmingly positive, and it became clear to CIHA that a dedicated position was crucial to properly run COL and maintain its mission.

Unlike the decision to keep the COL building, the choice to officially hire Blas was clear from the beginning.

Learning about COL's history might give the impression of it being an art cooperative, similar to ACW. But Blas and CIHA stress that the building is much more than that.

"We love the artist community and are indebted to them, but COL exists because of community and because of a definite need for a space like this for our neighbors, for Spenard and for Anchorage at large. I can't tell you how often I hear, 'Anchorage needs a space like this.' And that's not just from artists, that's from people who live in Spenard who come here for a nonprofit fundraiser or for their kid's birthday party. We embrace all the colors of Spenard. To have a place where they can gather is important," explains Blas.

Even though the area in which COL resides has improved drastically in the last three years, the work to build a better community is never done. CIHA is currently in the planning stages to make additional renovations to the building, updating the structure and making it more accessible to those with disabilities.

Plans are also underway to refurbish some of the other CIHA-owned properties surrounding COL, such as the old post office next door which could give way to a new center for startup businesses.

One of COL's more immediate initiatives is the Alpina Lot Project. Formerly home to a gas station that contaminated the ground and located kitty-corner to COL, CIHA purchased the land and cleaned it up, and is now looking to provide a $5,000 residency to an artist who can create something new in its place that acknowledges the history of the land while engaging the Spenard community.

Despite all these incoming changes, one thing that remains constant is Blas' involvement.

"One of the great things about being a young professional in Anchorage is that you can have a direct impact on what Anchorage becomes in 20 years," she says. "I've had a lot of opportunity here. I feel through my work here at COL and CIHA that I'm really posed well to have a big impact on what Anchorage becomes, and that's a place that's forward moving, progressive, very inclusive and supports the arts. Community building is my passion, and I'm doing all that here."

Written by Matt Jardin, UAA Office of University Advancement