Peoples Church Puts Faith into Action by Funding Independent Living for Adults with Disabilities

East Lansing’s Peoples Church started its capital campaign in January 2024 with big ambitions. In addition to raising money for renovations to its 101-year-old building, the church collected an additional $300,000 to aid area adults living with disabilities. 

“We began looking for impactful community outreach,” said Rev. Shawnthea Monroe, senior rector of Peoples Church since 2020. “We were imagining this big capital campaign that we were going to launch and it was very important to us to do something for others and not just ourselves.”

The $300,000 was donated to Lansing Intentional Communities (LINCS), a nonprofit organization that helps adults with disabilities build social connections and access resources needed to live independently.

LINCS was founded by a group of parents from the Mid-Michigan Autism Association, officially becoming a nonprofit organization in 2012.

“We were parents just trying to find solutions for our adult children with autism and other developmental disabilities,” said Mary Douglas, LINCS Founder. “[We were] helping them transition from a school system where there’s quite a bit of support around the students into adult living where there’s zero support. It’s difficult and you really have to piece it all together.”

Douglas said the reality is that most adults with disabilities end up living in their parents’ basement with no plan.

“The kids really struggle with social connections,” she said. “It’s really difficult for them to go out and make a life that they are immersed in.”

In 2017, the group purchased a home on the east side of Lansing, placing three adults with developmental disabilities there.

“We hired a person that we call the community builder,” Douglas said. “The community builder is a neurotypical person [whose] job is to build community.”

Residents at the LINCS properties range from 24 to their mid-50s. Costs are low for the residents, they pay about $525 a month for rent and utilities.

Douglas said the LINCS model is really independent living. The residents are not constantly monitored with set schedules. 

“What we’re trying to do,” she said, “is to create a social network for these guys so they’re not out in the world on their own. They have a place where they can live as independently as they can but still be connected to a communal unit.”

She said the hired community builder will plan outings for the residents, including renting canoes to paddle down the Grand River or attending a trivia night. They added a second house in 2021 and were looking for a third.

Enter Peoples Church, Habitat for Humanity, and University of Michigan-Sparrow.

Sparrow donated several properties to Habitat which already had a relationship with Peoples Church. 

“By serendipity, one of those houses happened to be about 200 yards from our other houses,” Douglas said. 

The house in question is 100 years old and will house a new resident and the organization’s first live-in community builder.

John Lundy of Peoples Church has led the congregation’s efforts in the project.

ELi spoke with Lundy while he was at the house with other Peoples Church volunteers.

“We have a crew right now of 13 people working,” he said. “We’re in the finishing stages with trim and painting and hope to be done in the next couple of weeks with the house, allowing people to move in in September.”

Lundy said that approximately 35 Peoples Church volunteers helped with the house and their commitment to LINCS won’t be finished once the last nail has been hammered. They will continue with beautification efforts around the house and funding other outside projects, in addition to “developing some relationships between” parishioners and residents.

“A lot of the credit goes to the church and their planning committee because they chose to put these two groups together [LINCS and Habitat],” Douglas said. 

Lundy said the volunteer opportunities with this project appealed to the church in-part because it offered an opportunity for parishioners to contribute, even if they didn’t have the financial means to donate. 

Monroe said she has served five parishes and this is the first time a congregation has included service and outreach in its capital campaign.

“This is the first church I’ve ever been part of that actually tithes its budget,” she said. “We have a community engagement ministry that their job is to take a certain portion of the money that we have as a church and put it into the community in places where it really makes a difference.

“That ethos of service, of always attending to those in need, is just kind of baked into this place.”