Bethlehem Luttheran Church

Bethlehem Lutheran Church was founded in 1888 at the corner of Washington Ave. and Dryades Street in the Central City neighborhood of New Orleans. One of the oldest historically Black Lutheran churches in the country, we have a long legacy of community involvement and concrete responses to community needs - including Community Table, a free, no-questions-asked meal program that serves over 600 meals a week and an Affordable Housing project that is currently underway.

Bethlehem Lutheran Church, a 135-year-old historically Black congregation is leading an innovative ADA-accessible affordable housing project in the Central City Neighborhood of New Orleans. In partnership with the Tulane School of Architecture we are constructing four ADA-accessible affordable townhouses, with the design and labor donated by Tulane. In short, teams of students design each house in the fall, and build it in the spring. Our city is in urgent need of safe, beautiful, and affordable housing, and this neighborhood-scale intervention provides units that not only help the families that live in them, but will explore a new model for small congregations to make significant impacts through the creation of affordable housing in partnership with other community organizations. Once each unit is complete, it is rented out through a partnership with Crescent Care - a local community health organization - to provide supportive housing for people living with chronic illness.