{"id":346263,"date":"2026-07-20T17:47:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T17:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/346263\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T17:47:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T17:47:10","slug":"st-petersburg-launched-its-yes-in-gods-backyard-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/346263\/","title":{"rendered":"St Petersburg launched its &#8221; Yes in God&#8217;s Backyard &#8221; Program"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1928\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/PXL_20260629_121540998-scaled.jpg\" class=\"attachment-263702 size-263702 wp-post-image\" alt=\"St. Petersburg, Florida\" large=\"\" decoding=\"async\"  \/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSt. Petersburg, Florida. By Se\u00e1n Kinane \/ WMNF News (29 June 2026).<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Last week, St Petersburg launched the \u201d Yes in God\u2019s Backyard\u201d program. It aims to provide housing through unused land owned by congregations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The program will help veterans and youth who have aged out of foster care.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">St Petersburg council members approved an ordinance last December to adopt the program into its city code. It is the first city in the state to adopt this provision.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Reverend Doctor Kenneth Irby is the Faith and Community Justice liaison for the city of St Petersburg.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He says that this is an exciting yet important opportunity to help solve the city\u2019s limited housing issues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAffordable housing is inextricably connected to available land. God\u2019s not making new land, so we have to be wise stewards of the available property. And fortunately, several faith organizations own land that could be developed for this purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The program is partnering with the Florida Housing Coalition and the Foundation for a Healthy St Petersburg to educate local church organizations interested in participating.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The participating organizations will provide insight on how participants should plan and navigate to execute this plan. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIn addition to local development, the city is offering to partner and to educate faith organizations on what it takes to develop those properties, in spaces like site planning and navigating the funding resources that are needed for the architectural design. The environmental review, all of the elements of property development that many faith organizations haven\u2019t had to deal with since they built their first structures.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This month, the \u201cYes in God\u2019s Backyard\u201d program will host its first informational session for local congregations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Congregations such as Palm Lake Christian academy are already performing housing projects on their land. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. Petersburg, Florida. By Se\u00e1n Kinane \/ WMNF News (29 June 2026). Last week, St Petersburg launched the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1571,141807,16665,30415,14024,1739,34101,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-346263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-affordable-housing","tag-community-organizing","tag-local-government","tag-news-and-public-affairs","tag-poverty","tag-religion","tag-religion-spirituality","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}