THE POWER OF FRESH EYES

Milford Hills arrived at the Placemaking Cohort with a big, audacious dream: they wanted to build housing. What they didn’t have was a first step.

First, they listened

Rather than guess what the neighborhood needed, the church went and asked — sitting down with the county school superintendent and other local leaders. The answer was sobering. Teachers in Rowan County couldn’t afford to live in the city they taught in. The community didn’t just need housing. It needed workforce housing.

Then they found the “now”

When NCV co-founder Luke Lingle walked the property, one thing became obvious. The housing project was the dream — but the church was missing the now. Those empty classrooms could start earning their keep immediately, funding momentum while the bigger vision took shape.

A ROADMAP FROM NOW TO NEXT

Milford Hills didn’t just pick a project. They built a roadmap to financial health — starting with what they could do today, and building toward what they’d dreamed of all along.

Today: rooms that pay their way

Using endowment funds, the church renovated its education wing, consolidating the youth ministry into a brighter, modernized space. The five classrooms that freed up are now leased to Families First, Inc., a local nonprofit that had been searching for a permanent home. The rental income alone is projected to repay the renovation within three to five years.

Tomorrow: the Teacher Village

The dream that started it all is still very much alive. Those three acres are slated to become a “Teacher Village” — affordable homes built for the very educators who serve this community but can’t afford to live in it. NCV is now working alongside Milford Hills on the financial modeling and deal structure to move it from vision to construction.

HEAR FROM THE CHURCH LEADERS

“We truly believe that a teacher village is something that not only our church can benefit from, but our community could be excited about… But it’s beyond us. We could not tackle that type of work on our own. And so we need partners like New Chapter Ventures to come along and to help us.”

THE IMPACT