This month Providence Housing Development Corp., an affiliate of diocesan Catholic Charities, submitted an application to New York State’s Homes and Community Renewal agency and its Housing Trust Fund Corp. for affordable-housing funds for a project at the Holy Rosary campus in Rochester, said Monica McCullough, Providence’s executive director.
The agency also is mulling an affordable-housing project at the St. Vincent de Paul campus in Corning, McCullough said.
Providence has entered into purchase offers to buy both the Holy Rosary and the St. Vincent de Paul campuses, but both sales are contingent on Providence receiving affordable-housing financing, McCullough said.
Under Providence’s plan, the school, convent and rectory on the Holy Rosary campus would be converted into affordable-housing apartments, and the church — which closed as a worship site in 2008 — would be reused as a community space, she said. The plan also would add new three- and four-bedroom units of affordable housing on scattered sites in the neighborhood around the Holy Rosary campus. The entire project would add about 60 units of affordable housing to the neighborhood.
McCullough said Providence is in the process of drafting concepts for the Corning site, and details of how buildings would be used have not been finalized. An application for affordable-housing funding for the St. Vincent de Paul project is still in development and will not be submitted this month, which is the deadline for applications for the most recent round of affordable-housing funding, she said.
Parish officials have said that the sale would take several years to close.
"(The sale) will substantially reduce expenses, move the parish towards one quality worship site, and strengthen the Catholic community in our area," stated an Oct. 30 letter to parishioners from parish leaders. "It is one big step toward averting financial collapse."
The proposed sale comes at a time when All Saints’ three churches are consolidating; All Saints comprises St. Vincent de Paul and St. Mary in Corning and Immaculate Heart of Mary in Painted Post, which also is up for sale.
