photo by: Bremen Keasey/Journal-World

Members of Lawrence's Ninth Street Missionary Baptist Church’s Hope Project break the ground on a new site for affordable housing Monday evening. The project, which is expected to begin in July, will add six new transitional housing units for families.

Several dozen Lawrence residents gathered near the corner of Tennessee and Ninth streets to celebrate the groundbreaking for a transitional housing development.

The groundbreaking was for a new six-unit development from the Ninth Street Missionary Baptist Church’s Hope Project that will serve as transitional housing for families who had recently been homeless. A three-story residential building will replace a parking lot at 909 Tennessee St., right next door to a four-unit building at 913 Tennessee St. that serves the same purpose.

Takisha Derritt, the program manager for the church’s project, said during the event it was a long awaited dream to be able to add more affordable housing options. Derritt noted the expansion of the Hope Project was possible with help from other organizations like Family Promise, the Douglas County budget committee and Justice Matters.

Derritt told the Journal-World the project had been thinking of expanding the transitional housing available for previously homeless families for several years, but getting funds from the city helped make the plan a reality.

The project received $300,000 from the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund in 2024, as the Journal-World reported. Monte Soukup, the chair of the city’s Affordable Housing Advisory Board, said during the meeting those funds come from a sales tax that Lawrence residents approved, so the entire community helped make this expansion possible. He thanked the Hope Project for “being brave” and working to add more affordable units in a city that needs them.

“It’s easy to talk about problems, but it is harder to step in and do the work,” Soukup said.

Eric Galbreath, the church’s pastor, said he was happy to see the project coming to fruition in part because of the church’s goals of meeting the needs of its community and wanting to set an example of the values it preaches. Galbreath believes this project getting underway is “only the beginning” of great things happening in the community.

Derritt said the project, which was approved by the Lawrence City Commission in May as the Journal-World reported, should see construction start in July.