A local faith-based ministry devoted to providing affordable housing for missionaries is close to closing, and those who currently benefit from their mission are not happy about it.
D&D Missionary Homes in St. Petersburg has provided low-cost housing to missionaries on furlough or in transition between assignments since its founding in 1949.
“Without D&D Missionary Homes, we’re gonna have to stay in a motel and the cost will be probably three or four times as much D&D cost us,” says Jack Chalk, a missionary in Spain who has relied on D&D for almost 20 years.
“It’s always nice to know that you have a place to go back to because you leave your personal items on the mission field,” said Richard Hurst, who has stayed at D&D while on furlough over the last several years.
“It’s nice to know that you have a fully-furnished house to be able to come back to and kind of feel like home where you’re not going to hotel to hotel or from church to church," Hurst said.
The land currently occupied by D&D Missionary Homes is in the process of being sold to Pinellas County. The county plans to use the land to build affordable housing.
David Gibbs, the current president of D&D Missionary Homes, says that selling the entire seven-acre campus was not their original intent.
"We were reaching the point where repairs and the maintenance was more than we could keep up with," said Gibbs. "So we were looking to really downsize our current campus."
Chalk is not convinced.
“My opinion is that people that are running the place now, that’s controlling the board of directors are not in it to serve missionaries, but are in it for the money," he said.
Pinellas County says the pending price tag for the property is $4.9 million.
Gibbs says the proceeds from the sale will go toward building a new campus roughly half the size of the current one. In the interim, the funds will be used for religious, charitable, and educational endeavors.